Forever Frozen
by Cryoshade
Summary: When an Evil Queen's curse reaches the small kingdom of Arendelle, two sisters find themselves transported to a different world, completely unaware of the life and magic they left behind.
1. Eternal Sunset

_Life in Arendelle was finally getting back to normal after being cursed to what was rumored to be an "Eternal Winter." The cold weather, brought on so suddenly in summer by their magically empowered queen, had vanished, and the young monarch set about the task of fixing her mistakes and showing her people just how sorry she was for the accidental three day freeze._

_It took some time, but the small kingdom was back on its feet, trading with others for supplies that had been ruined from the unseasonal weather and attracting enough dignitaries to keep surrounding kingdoms interested in future business. The queen and the princess spent many days ensuring that Arendelle would prosper, ruling fair and with grace. Despite her icy touch, the queen was no longer feared by her people, but loved for her tireless devotion to them. All was well._

_Until one fateful day they were brought news that an Evil Queen was planning to curse the Enchanted Forest and all the kingdoms within it. The Queen and the Princess of Arendelle searched for a way to stop it, refusing to let their people know about it until they had a plan to thwart it. They spent many sleepless nights together searching in dusty tomes for a way to shield their small kingdom from the curse, but they came up empty handed. They visited the mystical trolls, native to their homeland, for help against the darkness, but even they were powerless to stop it. _

_With no options left and no one to save them, the royal sisters stood before the throne, hand in hand, as the dark cloud washed over Arendelle and took away everything they knew._

_The sisters were thrown through time, launched into another world and stripped of their memories. They became shells of their former selves, unaware they were related to each other but still connected to each other as friends. They were two cursed souls in a sea of many others, all prisoners in the small town of Storybrooke, Maine._

Days in Storybrooke were very peculiar. The sun rose in the east and set in the west, just as it always did, but something about the town was just… _strange_. There were never any visitors from outside of town, the town's residents would never leave to venture out of state, and every day, no matter how the residents tried to make it different, ended up being exactly the same as before.

This kind of boring repetitiveness bothered Nina Hummel. She sat at her window, teal eyes sparkling in the streetlight as she gazed to the clock above the library. For as long as she lived here, which was forever, that clock has always been stuck at 8:15. Huffing, she stared at it harder, trying to make it move with her mind, but she failed, just like she failed every other night.

Still at her window, she played with the fabric of her red and white flannelled shirt, completely lost in the sounds and sights of the town. Despite the clock tower claiming it was later, it was actually quite early in the evening, somewhere around 6:00. People were still walking the streets, going home from work or stopping in at one of the local shops to browse. Her strawberry colored hair fluttered in the crisp autumn breeze, relaxing her more but making her jittery at the same time.

Every night was like this for as far as she could remember. It wasn't a terrible thing, actually, it was as normal as normal got. Still, she longed for something more, something bigger, and something…

Her thoughts were cut short by the familiar jiggling and turning of the door handle. "I'm home…" a familiar voice called. "Nina? Are you there?"

"I'm right here!" the energetic girl called back. She hastily shut the window to the fire escape, locked it, and exited the bedroom to greet the pale, blonde-headed woman who just walked in. She carried a brown bag of groceries in her hand and smiled at Nina, first happy to see her, and then quickly becoming amused. "Copying my style again, huh?"

Nina giggled and took the groceries from the taller woman's hands. She whipped her head to the side, showing off her twin braids with some kind of pride, even if she did steal the idea from her friend. "Hey, we've known each other since we were kids! So what if I want to imitate my "big sister"? Consider it a form of flattery."

The older girl with blonde hair in a French braid, Alison Vinter, could only giggle at her younger friend. It was true. Despite being separated by three years, the two managed to form a lifelong friendship in their youth that lasted now into their young adult lives. They trusted and knew each other so well that they even decided to live together until the day they found their prince charmings and rode off into the sunset… or at least, that's what Nina said they would do if either one of them ever had any luck in the realm of love.

"Fine, fine. Consider me flattered. Just don't start dressing like me or steal my shoes," Alison joked. She kicked off her boots and reached into her back pocket, pulling out an envelope as Nina put the groceries away. She looked at it for a while before turning her sights to Nina. "What's for dinner tonight?" she asked, genuinely curious.

"Spaghetti. I was going to make meatballs too, but we were kind of short on ground beef, so I just browned what we had and put it in the sauce."

"How about we make beef stew this Friday?"

"Ali!" Nina groaned as she all but threw a carton of eggs into the refrigerator. "You _know_ we can't afford to make that!" She turned around, ready to give her friend more reasons why it was out of their price range, but she stopped when she saw the envelope. She pointed to it as though she were afraid to address it. "What is that?"

The blonde grinned from ear to ear, holding it up so Nina could read the writing on the front. "My commission from Mr. Gold. Nina, I sold _three_ paintings!"

A shrill screech filled the small apartment before Alison found herself tackled into a bear hug. "Alisoooooon!" Nina cried as she squeezed the life out of her best friend, shaking her back and forth as she were some kind of stuffed animal bereft from the idea of pain from tight hugs. "I'm so happy for you!" Her eyes suddenly went wide and she set Alison back down on the ground, clutching at the sleeves of her blue sweater. "Wait, he didn't cheat you out this time, did he?"

"I made sure I got what we agreed to," Alison told her, opening up the envelope to show her the stack of bills inside. "Last time he used some kind of weird way of talking to scoot around so he got the better end of the bargain, but I made sure I got what was fair." She rolled her eyes at the memory, embarrassed how Mr. Gold outsmarted her and used his cunning to take more money from her paintings than he deserved to have. That was the last time she'd let him do that to her, and she played his game this time around. If she knew any better, she'd say he looked impressed when she left his shop this afternoon.

"The rent money is all here, and I had enough left over from shopping to cover next week's groceries _and_ the ingredients for the stew!"

"Alison, you're so awesome! Come on, let's eat!"

The two made themselves as comfortable as they could, cramped in folding chairs at a card table in the corner of the small kitchen. They would eat in the living area, but Alison's art supplies were set up in there, ready for when she came back to work on a piece in progress. They helped themselves to heaps of pasta and sauce, scarfing it down like they hadn't eaten all day.

They chatted for a good while, talking about their day, Alison elaborating more on how she was triumphant against Mr. Gold's wit, but the conversation died as soon as they neared the end of their meal. Nina rested her chin in the palm of one of her hands, poking an untouched noodle still left on her plate.

"Do you think…" she started, unsure if her question was appropriate enough to avoid angering the blonde. Her eyes met a curious blue gaze and she knew she couldn't stop now that she had Alison's attention. She would keep bugging her until she asked, so she did. "Do you think that maybe instead of using the extra money to buy more food, maybe we should save it? You know, for a rainy day or to move out?"

Alison blinked at the question, and while it didn't quite aggravate her, it still bothered her. "What? We're not saving enough already?"

Her stare bore straight into Nina, demanding an answer without saying it. "No, I mean, we are, but…"

"But what? Nina, don't you get it?" Alison's voice raised and she felt as though she were scolding a child, but her words needed to be heard. She's been over it a million times in her head and it was the only way she saw the outcome. "If we move to a better place, a bigger apartment or a small house like you wanted, we'd have bigger bills to pay. Bigger bills means more money to spend, and I can't make that much on just my paintings!"

There was something burning in Alison's eyes, but Nina had seen it before. They've had this argument many times before. Nina wanted to move on from the tiny apartment they shared, but Alison refused to move, afraid that the debt would be too much for them to handle, and she was right. Nina didn't have a job, refused to get one actually, because she claimed that she wanted to find out what she liked and make a career out of that instead of wasting her time at a dead-end occupation. The money came strictly from Alison's artistic ability and her negotiation skills with vendors around town, gaining commissions from the work that they sold for her since opening a shop of her own would cost too much.

The blonde huffed and glared at her glass of water. She was so angry she felt as though the water could freeze just from her stare alone. Avoiding Nina's innocent gaze, she continued on, anger dissolving to disappointment. "I'm sorry, I'm just tired of living on pasta, cereal and fruit juice. I thought with the extra money we could have a better meal that will last a few days."

They sat in silence for a few moments before Alison got up to clear the table. She cleaned the dishes and went into the living area, flipping on the lights to prepare a palette of blues, whites and purples for a painting she needed to finish. Nina simply retreated to the bedroom they shared, leaving the door open and turning on the radio for company. Alison usually liked it quiet when she painted, but occasionally she found herself inspired by the music. She didn't say anything about it tonight, so Nina was free to enjoy it in peace.

Several hours of music later, Nina got bored. She turned off the radio and slipped her shoes on. Carefully, she opened the window as high as it would go and climbed out onto the fire escape, leaving the window open as a quick exit for when she got too cold. She sat on the edge of the grated metal platform, putting her legs between two of the safety bars and letting them dangle over the side.

She liked Storybrooke, but it always just struck her as odd, like it didn't belong in Maine, or perhaps, that _she_ didn't belong in Storybrooke. Leaving was always on her mind, but she wouldn't dare tell Alison that. They were happy living together, so long as money wasn't an issue.

The thought brought a deep sigh from her lips. When was money _never_ the issue? They've struggled just to keep the tiny apartment. They didn't have many nice things; a few nice dresses for special occasions, a radio and a digital camera seemed to be the extent of their luxury. They didn't even have bedframes; they slept on twin bed mattresses on the floor.

Alison was doing all she could to keep up the place and keep them fed. She painted all day and all night, creating even when she ran out of ideas. Sometimes the paintings would sell as soon as she put them to market, which was great, but then there were times when nothing sold at all. They've had the power turned off in their apartment more than once because they couldn't afford it, a few of those times occurring during winter. It was miserable, but somehow, just being together made it seem fine. They got through hard times together, laughed together, and cried together, and when everything went so wrong, it just felt so right that she had Alison by her side.

So even though Nina felt so out of place in Storybrooke, she smiled knowing that she had her place next to Alison. Through thick and thin, they had each other's backs.

Her mind wandered again as she stared at the clock tower, and she almost didn't notice when the blonde sat next to her cross-legged. "It's getting cold out here," Nina warned her. The sun was far beyond set and she imagined it must be past midnight by now. "Are you sure you want to sit with me?"

Alison shrugged with her hands behind her back. "Eh. It doesn't bother me." Silence passed between them again, both thinking about their financial situation and the conversation at dinner that almost turned into an argument. Alison took her hands from behind her back and held a small white box. She set it down between them and nudged her younger friend in the arm. "Here," she said, pointing down at it. "I figured we deserved a treat after everything we've been though."

Nina's eyes widened at the box, not only in surprise but with an excitement just waiting to spill out of her. "No. Way." She gasped and balled up her fists, shaking them like a little girl getting the best present in the world.

There was a polite chuckle coming from Alison and she smiled, the lights from the street illuminating her pale features and seemingly washing away all of the stress she had gone through that day. "Yes way!" she responded. "I didn't tell you that Marco bought one of my sketches, so I used _that_ money to get us a little something extra." She took a thin hand and calmly opened the lid.

It took a moment in the crisp autumn air to catch the scent, but they both knew when they did. They closed their eyes, nearly at the same time, and inhaled.

_Chocolate._

One of the many things they agreed on was that chocolate solved every problem. It ended world hunger, stopped arguments, turned frogs into people…

"It doesn't really do that," Alison stated in a deadpan voice.

"Well it's better than _kissing_ the frog! Blegh! Who would want to do that!?"

So they sat there that night, hanging out together like the best friends they were, eating chocolate on the fire escape and watching the empty main street of Storybrooke. They've done it before, even if they couldn't remember it, but that was okay. They had each other, they had chocolate, and everything was right with the world.

"That clock is never going to move, is it?"

"Nope."


	2. Mills

The sun peeked through the curtains, shining rays of light through the fabric and onto the faces of the silent sleepers in the small bedroom. One of them stirred as a beam pestered her eye and she opened both of them, blue irises blinking into the new day as she stifled a yawn.

Alison always woke with the sun. She didn't know why, and some days she simply wished she didn't so she knew what it was like to sleep in, but for as long as she could remember, she got up when the sun came up.

She stretched off the sleep from her mattress, raising her arms above her head and reaching for the ceiling to straighten out her back from another uncomfortable night on the floor. She glanced across the room to her housemate, giggling quietly to herself.

Nina never woke up before ten and could never be coaxed out of the apartment before noon. She lay there drooling on her mattress in the golden sunlight, somehow tangled comfortably in the only green blanket she owned. She wouldn't wake up for at least another three hours, and to Alison, that was three hours of wasted time. As quietly as possible to avoid waking her friend, she took a set of clothes from her closet and slipped from the room.

Mornings around the tiny apartment were always quiet as Alison spent most of them alone, moving silently from room to room as she got started with her day. She sat in the darkness of the living room with her cereal, enjoying the calm that it brought her after just waking up. She'd move to the bathroom afterwards, changing into suitable clothes to walk around town and freshening up so she wouldn't be offensive.

Thin, pale fingers played at her platinum blonde hair, pulling it off into sections and weaving it with others in a skilled display of a French braid. Her hands moved quickly, seamlessly without delay. This, too, was something she did every day, out of habit more than necessity.

Only her fringe was left untouched. Sometime last year she decided to grow her bangs out, tired of hiding the top half of her face with the short locks. They reached just past her nose now, falling naturally to either side of her angled cheeks and she sighed, pushing them back over the top of her head and holding them there. No amount of hair gel or spray would give her that pushed back, spiky, regal look she envisioned in her mind, and she let her fringe fall again. Until she found that perfect hair care product, she would just have to look like the poor artist she was.

Still quiet, she left the bathroom and took her sketch pad and a set of pencils from the counter-top. Taking a set of keys from the hook on the wall, she exited her apartment and locked the door behind her.

The day was beautiful. The trees were changing colors and the sun was warm despite the chilling nips of autumn air. Alison didn't mind the cold and proved it by leaving her home with just a hooded sweater to protect her against the fresh breezes from the bay. She walked down the street, head up high, enjoying the calm despite all the noise going on around her.

Cars and school buses rolled up and down the street; people were heading to work or just getting an early start. They peppered the sidewalk, heading in all sorts of directions, each one with their own agenda. Likewise, she had an agenda of her own, only it seemed to be at a more casual pace than that of the people around her.

Halfway to her destination, she ran into the town's therapist, Archie Hopper, walking his energetic Dalmatian companion. She stopped and smiled at them both, greeting them with a bright hello.

"Well good morning Alison!" Archie's smile was infectious, his enthusiasm much the same way. She wasn't a patient of his, but even these quick exchanges she had with him every other morning made her feel better if things weren't quite going her way. "How are you on this fine day?"

"Good so far. I spent the last few days stuck inside painting, so I thought I'd stretch my legs a bit and sketch some things around town."

"You know I wondered why I haven't seen you in a while!" Archie laughed, relieved that the young girl wasn't stuck in another wave of depression. The conversations they had were always short, but even through those quick words he could read her hidden emotions. She was comfortably satisfied when her financial situation was well, but when it wasn't she was anxious and retreated into herself, barely making eye contact with anyone as she made her way to the shops to check up on her sales.

So it made him happy to see her out and about with a smile on her face. The more happy people in this town, the happier he felt.

He offered a quick apology as Pongo, his Dalmatian, tugged on the leash to urge his caretaker along, seemingly impatient with standing still. Alison waved goodbye and continued on her way, heading deeper into the town center. She passed by Mr. Gold's shop, nearly entering it out of instinct but refusing to, knowing that the pawn broker and general salesman would call the apartment if any of her paintings sold. She hated going in there, anyway. More than once she found him trying to cheat people out of their money and it pained her that she had to rely on him to sell her product. Someday, she thought, she'd have her own shop to display and sell her artwork.

Until then, she'd have to keep working for it. Her feet led her to a quaint diner nestled between two buildings. Anyone who didn't know about the place likely wouldn't even notice it was there, but she fell in love with it after one evening when Nina decided to treat her to dinner with her personal savings.

She walked in and sat down at a booth, not even looking at the menu seeing as she just ate. She opened her sketch pad and began to draw, faint lines being etched onto the white paper from her pencil as she moved her hand in calm and graceful strokes. She hardly noticed when a waitress set down a mug of hot chocolate on the table.

"Thanks Ruby," Alison said, stopping her line before glancing up and smiling at the girl who somehow managed to turn a waitress uniform into a rather lucrative outfit. Alison reached for her wallet, intending to pay for the drink immediately as she did every morning she decided to come to the diner, but Ruby held out a hand.

"No, no, don't worry about it," she said, red lips turning into a wide smile. "Granny said your next hot chocolate was on the house after that painting you did for us. She _loves_ it! And I think it's awesome too." She sighed looking out the window with a longing something in her eyes. "I just have this thing for wolves, you know?"

Oh, she knew. All of the diner patrons knew how obsessed with wolves Ruby was because she just wouldn't stop talking about them, and when she wasn't, she was making eyes at every dark-haired, scruffy looking man who walked in there. It wasn't a surprise when Ruby's grandmother made the request for a classy painting of a pack of the creatures. Alison made quite a bit of money on that project because she didn't have to sell it through a store like she did with her other paintings. The hot chocolate was just a bonus.

Ruby left to continue her work and Alison took a sip of the drink, biting her tongue as the searing heat scorched some of the taste buds on the tip. Trying to ignore the pain, she put her mind back to the sketch she was working on, pouring her vision into the canvas and getting lost in the lines. She sat there undisturbed for maybe ten minutes when someone plopped into the seat across from her.

Her head snapped up, oddly expecting Nina to be there, but it wasn't her. "Henry!?"

The boy beamed and slapped a metal shaker on the table next to her mug. "You _have_ to try it this way. You'll like it, trust me!"

Alison blinked, less concerned about the shaker and more about the boy in her booth. "What are you doing here!?" she exclaimed, trying to keep her voice down so people wouldn't notice but slightly failing. "Aren't you supposed to be in school?"

"Mary Margaret is out sick today, and I don't learn well from other teachers."

"Yeah… okay, I can understand that, but that's really not a good excuse to skip class."

He looked at her with big eyes and she couldn't do anything but sigh. She wasn't going to convince him to go back to school. She never could. He wasn't related to her in any way and she had no authority over him, plus she wasn't very good at talking to kids. Lucky for her, Henry was the most adult child in Storybrooke. He was friendly and just about everyone in town liked him, even if he did have a habit of interrupting people when they were busy.

He looked at Alison's sketch pad, intrigued by the lines already present on the paper. "What are you drawing?"

She decided to indulge him and turned the pad of paper to him so he could see it. "Mountains," she said warmly as Henry marveled at the picture in progress. "I know we have a lot of pretty hills in Storybrooke, but the mountains in the distance are my favorite, especially in wintertime." She stopped herself from saying more, wondering silently how this boy just made her want to explain all of her thoughts and feelings and why most of her landscape paintings had mountains in them. She stayed quiet as Henry returned the pad to her.

"It's very pretty," he said. "Why do you like the mountains in winter?"

"The snow," she answered immediately, almost too quickly. "It's just… it's pure. Blank. Like a canvas. You can create with it, you can play in it... it's just calming. Snow covered mountains are so tranquil, and I feel like nothing bad could ever happen there. If you went there you could be free of anything that bothered you. You'd be free to let go of your problems…"

"There'd be no homework in the mountains!" Henry giggled and forced a chuckle out of Alison.

"Right, no homework either. I like it in Storybrooke, but I wish I could just pick it up and move it closer to the mountains. This sounds weird, but I feel like I'm homesick when I look at them."

"I can understand that." He paused, then his eyes went wide. "Hey! I wanted to show you something," he reached for his book bag, but quickly got distracted from Alison's neglect of the shaker he placed on the table. "I'm _seriously_ telling you to try that." He went back to searching through his bag and Alison reached for the shaker, unaware what was inside. Cautiously, she tapped some of the brown contents into her drink and took a sip. Something other than the heat bit at her tongue. It was kind of spicy, actually.

"Cinnamon?" she asked. Henry nodded and thumped a big brown book on the table. He turned it to her, letting her read the gold label on the cover.

_Once Upon A Time_

She took another draw from the cinnamon hot chocolate and grew interested as Henry opened the book, flipping through pages upon pages of words and illustrations, explaining that it was a book of fairy tales given to him by Mary Margaret. "When I looked at your sketch, it reminded me of something," he said as he hastily tore through the pages. Finally, he stopped at the first page of a new story and the illustration that went with it.

The similarity was uncanny and Alison's eyes went wide at the realization. Her sketch of mountains, save for a few lines here or there, was nearly identical to the picture of mountains in Henry's book.

"Well that's a weird coincidence," she said absent-mindedly, somehow being able to dismiss the similarity all together. Henry sat forward in his seat, disappointed and slightly angry at her easy dismissal.

"Don't you remember this?" he asked, pointing to the picture. She shook her head no, and Henry grew desperate. "You used to live in the mountains once, a long time ago. You're drawing them because deep down inside you remember them."

"Henry—"

"You used to see these mountains every day! Why can't you remember?"

Alison just sat there, confused. Despite how clearly she recreated the illustration in the book without ever seeing it before, she could no longer see the similarities. Her vision stretched and skewed, distorting the picture inside the book, and her mind instantly forgot everything Henry just said, instead filling with the memories of a different conversation she thought she had with him.

She stood up from her seat and took her sketch pad, leaving the hot chocolate and the boy at the table. "I'm sorry, but I have to get going," she said, quickly exiting the diner. Henry looked after her sadly.

Every time he showed someone his book, they'd forget that they even looked at it. It had to be the curse, he thought. If there was any way he was going to get the people of Storybrooke to remember who they were, he would have to break the curse, or somehow weaken it. With a fresh idea, he ran out of the diner and headed to the town border.

Meanwhile, Alison walked down the street, unable to think and heading to a destination she didn't even know. Suddenly she stopped, blinking, and turned back to look at where she was coming from.

_I left the diner?_ She thought to herself. _What happened to Hen—never mind. I need to finish this sketch._

She spent the rest of her day drawing, wandering around town for inspiration while having short, polite conversations with the people she ran into along the way. She skipped lunch, per the normal with her income, and began to head home roughly two hours after sunset. Her early morning was beginning to catch up to her and she still had an unfinished painting sitting on an easel in the apartment. Besides, Nina would get worried if she stayed out too late and—

"Oof!" She fell back to the pavement, dropping her sketchbook as her back hit the unforgiving ground. _What did I just run into?_

She sat up, dazed from the impact and embarrassed that she had been so lost in thought that she hadn't been paying attention to where she was going. She reached for her sketch pad, hoping no one saw her ungraceful descent, but as her hand grasped the spiral binding she spotted someone's black handbag laying just a bit away from her art book. Heat rose to her cheeks from further embarrassment when she realized that she didn't hit an inanimate object but another human being.

She got to her feet and crouched on the ground, reaching for the bag while stammering a hasty apology. "Oh my g—I am so sorry, I wasn't…"

"Get your filthy hands off of my purse!"

She panicked at the loud, angry voice and froze when the handbag was snatched from her view. The voice was familiar; feminine, stern, and completely authoritative. Alison stood up now, completely regretting the decision to get out of the apartment today, and tried to look at the person she had run into. After just a few tries, she just couldn't bring herself to look at their eyes. "I-I'm sorry, Regina…"

"Sorry?" the other woman snapped as she swung the handles of her bag over her shoulder. Her body tensed with anger and she took a step towards the blonde, dark eyes narrowing in disgust. "Do you realize that I could have been injured due to your ignorance?" she seethed, completely dismissing that Alison had fallen and was only half of the reason they ran into each other to begin with.

Still, Alison would completely take the blame for it, because like most people in Storybrooke, she didn't have the courage to stand against the mayor. She bowed her head, focusing on the pages in the sketchbook she clung onto. "It was an accident."

"Well, your _accidents_ could have serious consequence someday if you…" Regina's voice trailed off as she looked at the girl closer. She eyed her up and down, starting from her dirty sneakers to the pale blonde strands of hair at the top of her head that seemed to shine platinum beneath the streetlights. "You…" she started, uncertain, "Who are you?"

Blue eyes blinked in surprise and she met the mayor's unfamiliar stare. _She doesn't know who I am?_ Storybrooke was a small town with a lot of people in it, so it wasn't realistic for Regina to know every single person who lived there. Still, it wasn't as if they hadn't seen each other before. Alison attended the town meetings and sold her stock at the winter festival every year. They saw each other on those occasions, so then why was the mayor questioning her now?

She gave Regina the only answer that she knew. "My name is Alison Vinter, ma'am," she said. She pointed down the street in the direction she was heading with an open palm. "I live in the apartments down the street from the library."

Regina, somehow, seemed unsatisfied with that answer. "What is it that you do?" she asked bluntly, pressing for more information.

Alison hoped she was asking for her occupation, because it was the only thing she had to answer with. She glanced down at the sketchbook in her hand. "I'm an artist," she said shakily, uncomfortable with the interrogation. "I mostly paint, though."

Dark brows drawing together, Regina still didn't seem satisfied with her answers, but as hard as she tried, she couldn't quite remember the pale girl who stood before her.

She sighed internally. If she couldn't remember this girl, then she likely wasn't important. "Stay out of trouble and watch where you're going," she said sternly, before marching swiftly past Alison and down the street, out of view.

Alison stared after her, thankful that the awkward confrontation was over.

_Who are you and what do you do?_

It seemed like odd questions to ask someone you just bumped into.

* * *

Alison finally made it into the apartment, noticing reheated spaghetti left out for her. She helped herself to a plate and cleaned up afterwards, marching into the living room as she always did after dinner and fixing up a palette of colors to finish up the painting that sat around all day for her.

This painting, like so many others, was of a mountainside. Different from the one she sketched earlier, this one was craggy with loose stones and jagged edges. The peaks soared into the dark sky, piercing it with their sharp caps of ice and snow. She had started this painting last week after an argument she had with Nina, and now that it was almost finished, she felt relieved. The sooner she got this painting out of the apartment, the sooner she could just let those feelings go and start on something new. She would have pitched it sometime over the weekend, but Nina insisted it would be good enough to sell. As she put the finishing details on the mountains, she hoped she was right.

The painting took her late into the evening again, but this time when she set her brush down, she was finally finished. Spent of all her energy, she wanted to go straight to sleep, but she knew she couldn't, not just yet. She stopped in the kitchen and grabbed the white box of chocolates she and Nina couldn't finish the previous night. Through the kitchen she went to the bedroom and climbed through the open window to the fire escape; Nina was there like she always was every night.

"You're going to catch a cold one of these days," she said as the older girl sat next to her. She was bundled in several layers of sweaters as if it were already winter. Noticing the box, she smiled and took a piece of round candy when it was offered to her. "So how was your day?"

Alison looked to the clock tower and just stared, letting the chocolate melt on her tongue as she thought about what happened. "It was, uh… it was actually pretty weird."

"How so?"

They sat there together in the streetlight glow as Alison recounted her awkward conversations with Henry and Regina Mills. Nina's eyes went wide when she recalled how she accidentally ran into the other woman.

"You're lucky she didn't send you to jail!" she exclaimed, well aware of the rumors of the mayor's temper. Alison ran her fingers through her hair, her heart beating faster as she relived the confrontation in her mind.

"I honestly thought she was going to. I mean, I don't think she fell. I did, but if she did then I didn't see her get up." She bit her lip as she thought about it more. "I really hope she doesn't decide to take it out on me. It was an accident!" Her eyes met Nina's and she relaxed a bit when the younger girl smiled at her. "What?"

"If she really did send you to jail, then she's the dumbest mayor ever."

"Nina!" Alison put a finger to her lips as if to shush her. There were other people in the building who used the fire escape as a porch on a nightly basis. Anyone around could hear them, not that Nina cared. She just huffed and turned to the clock tower again.

"What's the big deal? It's not like she's our queen or something. Everyone acts like she is, but she's just the mayor. She has more important things to worry about than some girl running into her on the street, right?"

"I guess…"

They sat there in silence for a bit, snacking on chocolate and watching the street as they did most nights. Despite not being able to remember most of what she talked about with Henry at the diner, Alison did remember one thing.

"Cinnamon in hot chocolate."

There was a pause. Nina just stared at Alison with her mouth open, only speaking when the blonde turned to her. "_What?_"

"When I went to the diner today, Henry told me to put cinnamon in my hot chocolate."

"And you just did it because he told you?"

"Nina, you know how hard it is to say no to that kid."

"How was it?"

Alison scrunched up her face, recalling how the spice peppered her tongue and worked its way into her nose, invading her sinuses as though her drink were corrupted. "I didn't really like it."

"Yeah, it sounds gross. Who would mess up chocolate with cinnamon? Now _that_ should be a felony!"


	3. Lord of Swords

"Heavy…"

"Nina, please don't drop those. That's next month's rent money…"

"I'm carrying THREE of these! You've only got two!"

Alison rolled her eyes as she walked down the street with Nina in tow, both carrying wrapped canvases. They were on their way to Mr. Gold's shop with the intent to put the paintings out to market, and as much as they liked the idea of money, just the thought of having to deal with the stingy shop owner made them irritable.

"Maybe we could find someone else to go through?" Nina suggested, struggling to hold onto her load of paintings. "Someone preferably closer to the apartment?" She only got a steely glare across the shoulder of the friend walking in front of her.

"Mr. Gold owns the town and just about every building and store in it. Even if we went through someone else, he'd still get some of our money." She shrugged and continued to march forward. "It's just easier to deal with him directly and let him try to scam me up front."

There would be the rare few occasions when Alison would get a request for a painting and was able to keep all the money from the sale, but she couldn't get by on those commissions alone. She hated it, but relying on Mr. Gold was her only option, and despite her loathing of him, he would manage to get a decent price out of her work, even if he ended up taking home more than she did.

Arriving at the shop, Alison juggled the paintings in her arms to get the door open and held it there with her foot, letting her younger friend inside first to relieve herself of her load. Alison followed her inside and searched the dark pawn shop for the owner. "Mr. Gold?" she called, watching Nina as she strode up to the old-fashioned cash register and ringed the bell placed next to it. They waited a moment for any signs of life in the shop, but got nothing. Nina tapped the bell again.

"Mr. Gold, its Alison!" she called out again, setting the paintings on the counter. "You called and said—Nina, stop hitting that thing!"

"Maybe he can't hear us?" Nina's innocence was clearly obvious, but her ignorance and lack of consideration clouded over what was seemingly a child-like exterior. She slapped the bell again, harder this time, and still no answer. "Geez, is he deaf?"

Alison buried her face in the palm of her hand when Nina began to rapidly tap the bell. "You're going to break it."

"Nah, its fine. How could I possibly—"

CLINK!

"Uhm…"

Blue eyes peered out from a shaky pale hand. Alison's face deadpanned. "You didn't."

A sudden thump came from around the corner, followed by the shuffling of feet. Nina started, panicked and wide-eyed, turning to Alison and pointing to the bell with open palms. "What do I do!?" she mouthed silently. Alison just shrugged her shoulders, equally panicked, and watched Nina do the only thing she could think of.

She picked up the bell and threw it into a pile of rugs in the corner of the shop. She could've sworn she heard Alison smacking her forehead before her attention was drawn to the counter.

"Ms. Hummel, I heard you the first time you rang. Next time, please restrain yourself from forcing your impatience on my belongings."

There was nothing Nina could do but smile and wave to the shop owner as she backed away, equally embarrassed and guilty, but somewhat relieved that he didn't notice that the bell was missing from the counter. She stood a bit behind Alison, not exactly afraid of the man, but completely weary of him.

He seemed to be a well put together man. His hair was long and graying, but he kept it neatly trimmed and combed. His appearance was fresh and rich, wearing a clean slate colored suit and standing tall and proud with a gold-tipped walking cane centered beneath his palms. Outward appearances, however, could be very deceiving. She heard stories about his deal-making, about how he insisted his terms be met, otherwise the deal-breaker receives nothing but consequence. It made her nervous every time she had to come in here and she secretly hoped she would never have to work with him or be put in a situation where she was forced to make a deal with him.

Alison, on the other hand, stood tall and brave in his presence, despite usually having a meek and shy appearance in front of people she didn't consider friends. She dealt with him before and knew his game, and though she would never admit it out loud, she sort of enjoyed the mental challenge he gave her, even if it did cost her money that she would never hope to see.

Mr. Gold placed a hand on the stack of canvases, setting his cane against the counter and unwrapping the top one from its cover. "More paintings, Ms. Vinter? You've sure been busy this last week."

For once, Alison was relieved to find him in a somewhat casual mood. Typically with him, talk was strictly business. Idle chatter was a first with him. Perhaps she finally earned some respect from him with their last deal.

She let herself laugh anyway, recalling the late nights she had where she just couldn't put the paint down. "I have to work to live," she said, giving him a knowing smirk. "Can't pay the bills until the paintings sell."

"Well, you'll be happy to know that I have a buyer lined up for the last one you currently have in stock," he said with a genuine smile. He nodded at the smirk still plastered to Alison's face and was quickly distracted by movement behind her. "Ms. Hummel, mind yourself and don't touch anything. These antiques are priceless, yes, but they still cost a great deal to the right buyer."

Alison whipped her head and glared at Nina, catching her with her hands hovering above a snow globe. The older girl shook her head "no" and sent the other one scurrying away from the breakable decoration, only to stand and stare instead at a nursery mobile hanging from the ceiling.

_You're impossible sometimes, Nina, really._ "S-So are you willing to sell my paintings again?" she quickly asked, hoping in the quiet of her mind that Nina wasn't breaking something else behind her back.

Mr. Gold held up the painting he unwrapped, turning it in the light to get a better view of the scene. Like most of her paintings, it was a picture of the mountains, only this time it seemed to be a view from a snowy peak. Down in the distance was a town, one big enough to be a kingdom, nestled between the slopes and calm waters of a fjord.

"Keep producing pieces like this and we might go into a full-time business together one day."

She smiled at the compliment, but also dreaded his words. She couldn't possibly imagine owning a gallery with him; just getting him to sell a few paintings for her without being official business partners was bad enough.

"So, I'll assume you want to split the profit the same as before?"

If she didn't know any better, she'd agree right on the spot, but she caught his intentional wording. "What do you mean by before? Are you talking about the last time I came in or the time before that?"

"Whichever time you believe I'm talking about."

"How do I know we're talking about the same time?"

It was a word game and Nina stood in the center of the shop, hopelessly trying to follow along. They traded snaps and comebacks, both thinking they were better at the game than the other before numbers started coming into the picture. Then their voices raised and they bickered because they couldn't win.

"Seventy-thirty is hardly fair!" Alison yelled, clearly upset that the man was trying to cheat her again. "It's in your favor! Fifty-fifty!"

"How do you expect me to run this shop and sell your product on such a low profit?" he argued back. His tone was harsh and loud, but he had yet to lose his temper. "Seventy-thirty, take it or leave it."

But Alison refused to give up, not after all her hard work, and especially not after she had gotten a better deal with her last group of sales. "Mr. Gold, I respect you, and I respect your shop and everything you're doing to help me sell my work, but I can't just accept thirty percent when it's my original work! I spent all day and night working on these!" Her hand clenched as heat rose to her cheeks. "I deserve my fifty percent!"

Gold's eyebrows raised at the declaration. "Oh, do you now?" he dared, taking hold of his cane once more. "The last I recall, it was you who came to me desperate for money, and out of the kindness of my heart, I offered to sell your paintings, not even asking for a fee to house them and care for them to begin with. Why, I even frame them for you so they look presentable. Do you know how much that costs?"

The color in Alison's cheeks grew deeper and she felt as though she was being berated like a child. Nina stood behind her, dumbstruck and wanting to help her friend, but unknowing how to do so without making the situation worse.

"This is _my_ store, Dearie, not yours, and when I compensate for someone, I expect to be compensated in return."

Alison scowled at his words, tired of being pushed around and bullied by him. She was about to bark back, ready to insult him and prove to him she was just as deserving of that money as he was when he did the unthinkable.

He brushed the top painting of the stack of others with his elbow and knocked it to the floor. Wide-eyed, Alison watched it fall, thinking of all those long hours she spent over it perfecting the original sketch and agonizing over the colors. She knelt down and reached for it, wanting to put it somewhere more deserving than a dirty, walked-upon surface, but she was suddenly stopped and distracted by a black walking cane striking the floor with a loud thud.

She didn't understand at first and didn't hear when it happened, but as she stared at the cane, realization dawned. She followed the length of the cane with her eyes, casting her gaze downward to find the tip buried in the kingdom nestled so quietly in the fjord.

There was hardly any grip on her emotions. Tears burned behind her eyes but she refused to let them show. Her heart thumped wildly against her chest in a mix of rage, fear and confusion. She glared up at him, steel blue eyes flickering in the dim light. Words wanted to tumble from her mouth but she was unable to speak; her jaw was clenched so tight not a word would get past her lips.

Mr. Gold stood strong and regal, both hands resting calmly on the golden hilt of his cane. "Seventy-thirty, my way," he repeated, leaning closer to the girl on the floor to emphasize his words. "Take it," he said sharply, offering a hand to her before motioning to the paintings that remained unscathed, "or leave it."

_Accept the deal or get nothing at all. _

Truthfully, there was no choice being offered here, and Alison knew it. With her work laying ruined before her and her self-esteem shattered, she hung her head in defeat and offered her hand to the deal-maker. He took it, shaking it once and letting it go immediately.

"We have a deal, then," he said, pulling his cane from the canvas and moving behind the counter again, producing a small stack of documents and circling several places on the pages as Alison dejectedly rose to her feet. "I'll need you to sign these spots and it will be final."

The pen shook violently in her hand as she made out her signature, showing off feelings that she was afraid to give voice to. As Mr. Gold gathered the documents from her, she eyed the paintings that remained on the counter.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of them as I _always_ do, Ms. Vinter," he said, completely acknowledging and dismissing the act he performed just moments ago. "Our business is done here. As always I'll call if anything sells."

She refused to answer him. She just stood there, trying to think of a way to get back at him for destroying her work, but she couldn't come up with anything. Her mind was a complete blank, and it was only from Nina's hand on her arm that she finally understood that she should be making her exit.

"Oh, and before I forget, you owe me a new bell."

Nina's head snapped back and glared at him. How dare he look so smug after crushing her best friend? She didn't have words for him, afraid she would only make the situation worse by adding in her two cents. Instead, she stuck her tongue out at him as she led her friend out of the store and into the fresh air of Storybrooke's main street.

Unsure of what else to do, Nina looped her arm around Alison's, letting the taller girl lean on her as they walked back home. Alison was shaking, having been so rattled by the cruelty she witnessed by the man who was helping to pay her rent.

Nina saw the whole thing, powerless to stop it and still lost on how she could have possibly made it better. Normally, she would have jumped in to protect her usually timid friend, but something about Mr. Gold just frightened her. His presence alone put her on edge.

She looked up, trying to find the gaze of the friend she loved like a sister. "He really went too far," she said, making sure that Alison knew that she was on her side. "I mean, we'll still be okay for the rent next month without that one, but he didn't have to do that."

"…It doesn't matter."

"Yes it does!" Nina calmly argued, trying to instill some fighting spirit back into the blonde. "All that work you put into that painting and he just damaged it like it was nothing! I—oh Ali, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to…"

But the damage had been done inside the shop and Nina only brought it to the surface. Alison separated herself from Nina's side and stumbled, leaning up against a lamppost as tears were finally forced down her cheeks.

"That was my best painting…" Alison admitted. She put her head against the cool metal of the post and ran her fingers through her fringe, clutching at her scalp through an angry frustrated sob. "I put _everything_ I had into that piece... my heart, my soul, my dreams… everything, Nina. I wasn't going to sell it, but we need the money so bad…"

The extent of the damage done ran deeper than just a broken canvas; that much was clear now. Nina didn't know what else to do but stand at the side of the friend who needed her, hugging her around the shoulders as the older girl worked out her tears.

It seemed like every time they got ahead, even by just a tiny bit, something would bring them back down. Sometimes it was the money, other days it was their trust in each other. Today, though, it was their confidence that was broken, punctured ever so precisely by the cane with a golden hilt.


	4. Healing Over Time

"I'll beat that cripple with his own cane the next time I see him!"

"I bet you'll get arrested as fast as you can snatch it from him."

After their misdealing with Mr. Gold, Nina had ushered Alison back home and forced the girl to take a hot shower to try and relieve herself of the stress and heartbreak that resulted from that morning's confrontation. The warm water did her some good, relaxing her muscles and clearing her head from the draining haze that came from arguing. Alison was good with words and better at outsmarting people, but when met with an opponent who could bend the rules to his liking, her intellectual tactics were useless.

She was still upset with herself for allowing Gold to have the upper hand, but in her current situation, she was powerless. Who was she to demand better pay from a man who nearly owned the entire town? She acted like a fool and felt like one now that she had time to think on it clearly.

It didn't stop her from enjoying Nina's ranting, though. She sat at the kitchen table and braided her hair, watching as Nina paced the floor and rambled on about how she would get back at Gold for getting away with everything he did.

"Do you think Sherriff Graham will let me drive a cop car through his front window?"

"No. And no to whatever else you're thinking. If I ever beat Mr. Gold, I want it to be on my own terms. We just can't afford to do that right now."

"But he's taken advantage of us for too long! We _have_ to do something!"

"He's the only reason we can pay the rent, Nina! We _can't_ do anything! Not now, at least."

Nina huffed and crossed her arms, pouting at the older girl. "Fine, fine! But promise me you'll let me be there when you kick his ass!"

"I'm not going to—okay, metaphorically, yes I want to kick his ass, but not in the way you're thinking. Jesus, Nina, you can't solve every problem by punching people in the face."

"I know that! But sometimes you just have to let it out, you know? You gotta le-" Her voice trailed off into silence and her face dropped, sensing her friend still hadn't recovered from the sound defeat she was given. Nina had tried everything to get her to stop thinking about it, but it was hard to do when even _she_ couldn't get her thoughts off of it. She tried making jokes to lighten the mood and got just a few giggles out of Alison, but nothing more.

The blonde finished braiding her hair and sat at the table with her chin resting on her palm. She stared longingly into the living room, wanting to paint but still too hurt to even think of picking up a brush anytime soon. She replayed the confrontation over and over again in her mind, overanalyzing and wondering what she could have said or done to make the greedy pawn broker agree to the terms she thought was fair.

Nina noticed her deep stare into the dark room, having seen it so many times before when things weren't going well for them. If she let her think alone for too long, Alison would distance herself from her and fall into a bout of depression that could take weeks to bring her out of. She's done it before, and each time it happened Nina shared some of the pain. She couldn't bear to see her friend suffer that way.

So she had to stop it before it even had a chance to start. Like a woman on a mission, she marched right up to Alison, took hold of her wrist and yanked her out of her seat.

"Nina!?" Alison gasped, stumbling out of her chair as Nina pulled her to the front closet. "What are you—"

"Today's Friday!" Nina stated as she whipped the closet door open. Letting go of Alison's wrist, she bent in, rummaging for their shoes. "You said you wanted to make stew today and I haven't gone shopping yet! So let's forget about that _idiot_," she grunted, pelting Alison in the gut with one of her boots, "enjoy our day, and make the best dinner we've had in months!"

Nina's enthusiasm was generally contagious, but Alison just wasn't able to catch it. She ducked out of the way of her other boot, aimed for her face this time, and sighed. "Maybe we should just save that money…"

"Nope! Nuh-uh, I don't want to hear it!" Nina threw a jacket at her. "We _deserve_ this Alison. You work too hard to not enjoy things." She slipped on her shoes and faced the taller blonde as she wrapped herself up in a heavy woolen coat. "Really, though, I mean it. Life's too short to get so down on yourself. I… I know what that painting meant to you, and it makes me sad to see you so hurt, but…"

Her teal eyes darted to the floor, searching for the words that certain ears needed to hear. "You're going to paint more amazing pictures, because you're just that talented. You put your all into every piece you do, and it shows, it always, always shows. So don't let that one he ruined bring you down; you're too special to let a jerk like him try to control how you feel about yourself."

Alison closed her eyes, taking the words in through the clear darkness of her mind. She smiled, smirked actually, and opened her crystal blues with a genuine appreciation for the person standing before her.

"Nina… thank you."

The redhead beamed at Alison's lifting mood, happy that she was able to bring her out of her rut, even if it only lasted for a little while. She grabbed hold of her wrist again and dragged her out the door, determined to keep her spirits from slipping. "Come on! Stew takes a couple of hours to cook if you want it to taste good; we don't have all day!"

A giggle that followed behind her as she exited the apartment put a smile on her face. Alison was going to be okay. It would take some time, but she would recover from the wound with Nina there by her side when things got too tough. They were best friends; that's just what they did.

They jogged down the street a ways before Alison begged Nina to stop running, not having nearly a fraction of the limitless stamina that the younger woman seemed to possess. They kept up a nice banter on the way to the store, forgetting the world around them as they walked. Nina took extra care to try and distract Alison as they passed by Mr. Gold's shop, though she wasn't entirely sure she succeeded.

Like with any usual trip into town, Nina got sidetracked from the main objective, stopping at storefront windows to look at the displays inside or just taking a moment to marvel on how wonderful of a day it was despite the tension that morning and the bitterness of autumn. She couldn't stop herself from dragging Alison into Granny's Diner for a few minutes to chat with Ruby and order a take-out of hot chocolate for the both of them.

As they walked out of the diner with their drinks, Nina looked at it cautiously before taking the first sip. "There better not be any cinnamon in here."

A soft chuckle came from Alison after she swallowed a draw from her take-out cup. "It's fine. Ruby knows that we like it plain and that marshmallows or whip cream are for special occasions. Henry was the one that suggested the cinnamon last time."

"That kid needs to develop some taste buds…"

"_Nina_!"

Nina stuck her tongue out as Alison playfully hit her on the shoulder. They continued on their way with Nina getting distracted only a few more times before they came to the grocery store, located across the street from the sheriff's office. As they passed the office, Alison noticed something.

A bright yellow VW Beetle was parked in the parking lot. She squinted at it, trying to put a face to the car but simply wasn't able to. "Who drives a Beetle around here?" she asked, genuinely curious. Nina didn't have an answer but was equally intrigued.

"I dunno. I've never seen it around here before. It seems like everyone around here sticks to dark colored cars, except Ruby, of course. Does everything she own _have_ to be red? I mean, come on! There's like, a million other colors out there, you don't have to stick to one…"

Nina rambled on, but Alison couldn't keep her eyes off the car. For as long as she could remember, no one ever came to Storybrooke. They didn't have visitors or tourists, and nobody left. Nobody wanted to leave. They didn't sell cars here; there was an auto shop, but that was for repairs only. Could it be that someone after all this time finally came to this town?

She reminded herself again that the car was parked in the lot of the sheriff's office. If they did have a visitor, a stop at the town's prison likely wasn't scheduled. Alison turned her nose up at the car and finally tore her eyes away from it. If the visitor was a felon then she surely wanted nothing to do with them.

They spent nearly an hour in the grocery store, picking out the best quality items for the amount of money they were willing to spend and stocking up on a few little things they needed around the apartment. As soon as the shopping was finished they immediately went back home and started on their dinner. Nina headed the operation and gave orders to Alison, telling her to slice the vegetables a certain way as she prepared the beef for cooking.

"For being an amateur cook, you're pretty serious about this!" Alison joked as they worked. She got one of Nina's famous pouts.

"Excuse me for wanting it to look as good as it'll taste! Besides, until I find that something I really want to do for the rest of my life, at least I can make a good meal for you after all the work you do to keep us here."

Alison put down her knife and looked at the redhead seriously. "Maybe you could become a chef? Or work in the kitchen at one of the restaurants around town?"

Color came to Nina's cheeks and she smiled, embarrassed. "No, oh God no. My cooking isn't that good. We're lucky that spaghetti and soup are the only things we can afford because even if we had more money, that's all I would be able to make!"

They both laughed. Alison wasn't much of a cook herself, but it was better to let Nina handle things in the kitchen. She had more experience there and, despite being a little clumsy, hadn't managed to set fire to their small cooking space. Yet.

As their dinner simmered, they spent the next few hours chatting away, reminiscing on the past and dreaming about what they'll do when they become financially stable. They listened to their favorite songs on the radio while Alison showed Nina how to put her hair into a French braid. For a few minutes, they could have been passed off as twins, though Nina shook it out and braided her hair back into pigtails, preferring the individualism and the separation of weight on her head.

When the stew was finally ready, they sat down for a long meal, taking their time to enjoy the fruit of their labors and letting their taste buds get lost in the warm savory flavors. Despite eating their fill, they had enough portions to last them for another three nights. They cleaned up, and as per usual, Nina went to go sit out on the fire escape alone so Alison could paint in silence.

She was a bit surprised when Alison joined her right away, but then she realized the reason why. They had a lot of fun today, more fun than they've had in a long while, but Alison hadn't forgotten what happened that morning. Nina could tell that she had been thinking about it all day, and she'd be lying if she said that she wasn't doing the same. The wound was still fresh; it would be a few days before Alison could calmly paint again.

Not that Nina minded the company so early, if anything it only made her happier.

They sat quietly, watching the streets, faces aglow in the streetlights as they watched people walk about, bar-hopping or simply finishing their business before heading home for the night.

"When we're rich we're going to a bar," Nina said suddenly, continuing a conversation from earlier in the evening. Alison looked at her with a brow raised and a smirk on her face.

"Oh really? Have you ever tried alcohol before?"

"No, but it can't be _that_ bad if people drink it all the time!"

Alison sighed, brushing her bangs away from her eyes with one hand. "You're not even old enough to go to a bar, Nina. I mean, you can get in at some of them, but you can't drink. And to be completely honest, the thought of you being drunk terrifies me."

A wide smile crept across Nina's face and she leaned back, glancing at her best friend. "What kind of drunk are you?" she asked slyly.

"Uh, what?"

"I'm asking! What are you like when you're drunk? Are you one of those hyper types, or the snuggly ones? Oh, I know! You're one of those affectionate drunks aren't you?"

"Nina, stop…"

"Ooh I can just see you falling on top of people and asking them for their numbers…"

The color of red that Alison's face turned was so deep it looked as though she had gotten sunburnt from the moonlight. She covered her face with both hands, embarrassed at the idea. Nina nudged her with her shoulder. "Come on! I'm only joking! You're probably one of those party drunks, not the rowdy ones, but I bet you sing and dance like crazy!"

Alison uncovered her face, fleeing from her embarrassment and now just genuinely curious. "And how, pray tell, did you come to that conclusion?"

"Because when we have the radio on and you're in the living room painting, I can hear you humming to the music. And I know you sing good, too."

"Hm." Alison looked at the clock tower, momentarily entranced by its light before turning to Nina. The younger girl still seemed to be captured by the clock's gaze. "When you turn twenty-one I'll take you out to one of the bars and we'll see just what kind of drunk _you_ are. I bet you get even more hyperactive than you already are and… Nina!?"

The young redhead bolted to her feet and leaned against the safety rail, standing on the tips of her toes to try and get a closer look at something in the distance and leaving her older friend sitting in confusion. "Nina, what's wrong? Did you—"

"Alison, look at this." The blonde sat for a moment, apprehensive, before Nina finally tore her gaze and looked at her with wide teal eyes. "Stand up!" she urged, and Alison had no choice but to comply. She rose to her feet and put her weight against the guard rail, leaning with her arms crossed on top of it. She looked around below their building, searching for something or maybe even someone hiding in the bushes. Nothing. Her eyes then went to the street to look for something out of the ordinary. Still nothing.

"What am I supposed to—"

"What time is it?" Nina asked, cutting her off again. Alison turned around to head back inside and look at the clock in their bedroom, but the grip on her elbow told her to stay where she was. "No, not from that clock. What does the tower say?"

Alison turned to the clock tower in the distance, squinting against its bright light as she struggled to find the position of the minute hand. "It's eight-sixteen, why…"

It hit her immediately after she said it.

Eight-sixteen.

The clock _moved._

* * *

**AN: Hey everyone! I just wanted to say THANK YOU for following the story this far! The first chapter was originally meant to be a one-shot, but seeing as this is chapter four, that obviously didn't go as planned. **

**I had this story started with a K+ rating, but as I thought about it more, I changed it to a T rating to reflect Once Upon a Time's PG-13 tv rating. I don't have later chapters outlined quite yet, but any cursing/violence in this fic isn't going to go beyond what would regularly happen in the show.**


	5. The First Day

"Come ooon! Come on, come on, come on! Let's go already, ya slowpoke!" Nina stopped her giddy run and looked back to Alison calmly walking behind her. "You need to get out and exercise more!"

She earned an irritated, grumpy face in return. Alison strode up to her, hands in the pockets of her hoodie, and glared down at the shorter girl. "I only got three hours of sleep because of you. Just because your batteries never run out, it doesn't mean you get to call me slow," she grumbled, walking past her and continuing on to their destination.

Rolling her eyes, Nina huffed and caught up to her, walking by her side. So what if she got just a _little_ bit excited about the clock moving for the first time in what seemed like forever? Staying up all night to make sure it kept moving was an exciting event! Of course, she couldn't watch the minutes go by alone, either. She had to make sure Alison witnessed it as well, every single minute of it. She only let the girl out of her sight when she claimed she needed to use the bathroom, but after fifteen minutes, Nina realized that she simply went to bed and abandoned her on the fire escape to watch the clock alone. She went to bed soon after, but as soon as she woke up due to a car alarm going off outside, she was up for good, and her obsession with the clock tower continued, much to Alison's dismay.

The blonde rubbed her forehead, trying to rid herself of a headache that had formed as a result of the previous morning's tension and heartbreak. She felt groggy and she knew she needed more sleep to recover from those emotions, but Nina's excitement was like a perpetually ringing alarm clock. "I have never seen you so excited to be up and walking around at eight in the morning…" she said, recalling past experiences of trying and failing to rouse her friend from sleep to run errands together. "I know it's exciting that it finally moved, but aren't you going a little overboard with this?"

"You don't get it! I just feel like we've been stuck in a cycle for as long as I can remember," she said, glancing up at the tower at the end of the street. "Since it finally moved, maybe that means that we'll get out of the cycle?" She inhaled deeply and held out her arms as she walked, letting the breeze rustle through her clothes and hair. "Maybe things will finally be different around here!"

"We're still broke," Alison dully reminded.

"Yeah, yeah, I know that."

"You still don't know what you want to do with your life."

"I-I'm working on it…"

"Mr. Gold is still an ass, Regina is still scary, Ruby still dresses like a—"

"Okay! Okay," Nina said, lowering her voice as a signal to Alison to quiet down. "Maybe things won't change right away, but they'll happen eventually." A moment of silence, then Nina gave her friend a hard look. "Wow, you're brutally honest when you're tired."

"You disrupted my morning ritual. What did you expect?"

For the better, Nina decided against entertaining her with an answer. They made it to the clock tower just as it hit eight-fifteen. She was worried that it would get stuck again and not move. Regardless how Alison felt, she knew that the advancing minute hand meant something. It held the hopes and dreams that someday, maybe the two of them could get a better place, or at least afford better things. It was a symbol of a better future.

Together, they stood at the base of the tower and watched the agonizing seconds it would take before the minute hand would move. Nina balled up her fists in anticipation and Alison glanced at her, still perplexed by her obsession with the clock. She, too, turned her gaze back up to the symbol of Storybrooke and waited.

And waited.

_Tick-tock, tick-tock._ Alison resisted the urge to groan when Nina clicked her tongue in time with the gears turning above them.

A few more seconds and… the minute hand dropped to the next line on the dial. It was eight-sixteen once more.

"Woohoo!" Nina threw her hands over her head and cheered loudly, not caring about the stares she was getting from other passerby's. Alison tucked her arms in and glanced at them nervously, completely embarrassed. "Can we go now? Please? The clock isn't going to stop because you're not looking at it, so can we just go?"

"Fine, fine! What's wrong with you this morning?" Nina asked. Without making a big show of it, Alison motioned to the people staring at them and Nina felt dumb. In Nina's own words, Alison was the world's biggest introvert. Crowds bothered her, interacting with strangers was worse, and having attention drawn to herself over something she had no control over was probably one of the worst things that could happen to her. Nina couldn't quite understand it, but then again, a lot of the problems Alison dealt with were pretty difficult for her to grasp. She felt crummy knowing that she put her in that situation.

"Ah, I-I'm sorry. Come on," she took hold of Alison's wrist and calmly led her away from the clock tower. "I promised you that we'd go to the craft store after this, so let's go!"

"W-Wait…"

"Hm?"

Alison turned back to the building they were walking away from and headed for one of the windows. They were covered from the inside with old newspapers, barring anyone from peering in to see what the place held. But there was one spot Alison knew of, right on the side of a certain window, where it wasn't completely covered and offered a small glimpse. She pressed her face to the glass and cupped her hands around the sides of her temples to block out the sun from her view.

Nina quietly watched her for a few moments, waiting for her to say something. Impatient, she couldn't save herself from asking. "Do you see anything?"

Blue eyes searched, looking hard through the dirty pane of glass for any kind of life or a sign of disturbance inside, but found nothing. Giving up, she pulled herself away from the window and looked over to the words on the side of the building.

"Nothing's changed," she said in disappointment. "Books are all over the place and it's dustier than ever. Man, would I love for this library to be opened again." She glanced at Nina and the two continued down the street, now heading for the craft store to stock up on paint supplies.

"I wonder why they closed it in the first place," Nina wondered out loud with a finger to her chin. "It's not damaged. There wasn't a fire there or anything, at least, not that I know of."

Alison bit her bottom lip, her mind equally invested in the mystery of the library. It was always closed, and no matter who she asked, no one could give her a reason why. Not even Mr. Gold had an answer for her. "My only guess is that the owner passed away, or that they just stopped caring for it. If there isn't a big demand to reopen it, then there isn't really a point to fixing it up in the first place." She sighed, forgetting about her embarrassment just moments ago and focusing instead on the sad, abandoned building. "It's really a shame. I'd love to spend my free time in there."

"What free time?"

Alison playfully shoved Nina and giggled. "The free time I'd have if you didn't make me go outside to watch a clock!"

"Hey, fresh air does you good and you need the exercise, ya homebody!" She got a glare but chose to ignore it. "Besides, we're getting more paints for you today, remember? Everything has a purpose."

"Right. Whatever you say Nina." Alison held a smile, but it fell quickly and her voice took on a more serious tone. "This will probably be the last we can spend for a little while. I already have the rent for next month put away, but we're cutting it close with the water and electric bill, plus we need to save money for food."

There were a few topics Nina didn't like to talk about, and money was one of them. She wanted to live a comfortable life, one where she was free to do what she wanted. Right now, she had her freedom, but it came at the cost of her comfort. If she wanted comfort, she'd have to give up her freedom and tie herself to a job she wouldn't enjoy. It bothered her that they were stuck in such a situation, but she was too stubborn to let Alison give up her painting to work at a minimum wage job for the same amount of money and she just refused to get a job herself.

They could make this work. She was determined to make it work, even if it meant she had to sacrifice a little more comfort to make it happen. "We'll be fine," she reassured with a smile. "Gold said he had a buyer lined up for that one painting and you still have four more out there. We can just skip the trips to Granny's until everything is paid up."

_If only it were that simple_. The thought rang through Alison's mind, but she kept it to herself.

A little ways down the street, the duo found themselves at Crafts N' More, one of the few hobby shops in town. It was the main supplier of Alison's paints and canvases, but the shop held other surprises for the artistic, including clays for sculpting and cameras for up-and-coming photographers.

She picked out a few different sized canvases, usually opting for a medium size but choosing several smaller ones to hopefully speed up the sales. She varied her paints, gravitating towards blues and purples, but now opting for brighter colors as well.

"No mountains this time?" Nina asked, taking notice of the palette change. Alison simply shrugged as she carefully picked her paints, trying to determine which colors complemented each other and which ones would blend smoothly.

"I don't really know what I'm going to paint until I get a clear vision in my head, so I like to be prepared. Doesn't hurt to break out of my comfort zone once in a while, right?" she winked, and Nina beamed at her enthusiasm. She leaned closer to the rack of paints and pointed out colors she'd rarely seen Alison use before, all the while thinking back to the clock tower. It was so simple, but even Alison was changing with advancement of time. It made her happy, and it solidified her gut feeling that something _good_ was going to happen soon and that things around town were going to be different.

Really, that's all Nina hoped for.

They left the store with their purchases and trekked back down the main street towards their apartment, when Alison noticed something. Parked outside of Granny's Diner was the yellow VW Beetle, the same one she saw in the lot of the sheriff's office yesterday. She frowned at it, having convinced herself that the owner must have been a felon to wind up with the sheriff so fast after just coming into town. She wanted to get away from it, to move past what she believed was danger, but Nina stopped to gawk at it.

"This is SUCH a cute car!" she beamed, peering in the windows for a better view of the interior. "Who do you think owns it?"

"Does it matter?" Alison asked, desperate to get away before the felon found them investigating their car. "It's not ours and it has nothing to do with us. Let's just…"

"Hey!" Alison stopped cold in her tracks and Nina looked away from the car with kind eyes in search of the voice that called out to them. She stood fully and smiled at the boy walking towards them.

"Hi Henry!"

Alison turned as well, tearing her nervous thoughts and gaze from the car to the young boy. Instinctually, she was about to berate him for skipping class again, but after remembering that today was Saturday she stopped the words from spilling out and simply waved at him in greeting. "Out alone today?" she asked, brow raised in question. Henry may act like an adult at times, but he was still a kid who needed to be looked after.

He put his hands in the pocket of his jacket and smiled with his mouth closed. "Nah, I'm out with my mom today."

He was out with his mom. Regina was here.

Alison and Nina connected the dots and came to the realization at the same time. Their eyes widened ever so slightly, enough to show their fear but not enough to be completely rude. Nina motioned to the canvases in her arms and took a step away from Henry, tugging on Alison's sleeve to make her do the same. "Well it was nice running into you Henry!" she said quickly, wanting to avoid any kind of conversation with the mayor of Storybrooke. "We gotta get going. Alison's got some painting to do and I—"

"Henry!" a new voice called from the diner. Nina stopped her hasty getaway and completely froze at Alison's side. "You forgot your book!"

There was no time to disappear from the situation and Nina latched onto Alison's arm in fear of meeting the intimidating official of Storybrooke.

But the mayor never came out of the diner. Instead, a woman of average height walked out towards Henry, holding a leather bound book in her arms that should have been recognizable to Alison, but simply wasn't. She looked down at Henry, blonde hair spilling over her shoulders as she handed the book back to him. There was a moment before she turned her attention to the duo that seemed to be staring at her. "Are these friends of yours?" she asked, turning a defensive shoulder away to distance herself from their dumbstruck gazes.

Henry held his book against his chest and nodded, looking up at her. "Yeah! They're really nice and they look after me like my big sisters!"

The two smiled and blushed at Henry's compliment, briefly calling back memories of meeting the young boy in the diner or at the park and giving him advice when he asked for it. Regina didn't like anyone to be close to her son, but it was hard when he was such an innocent, good-spirited kid. They felt in some way that Henry was a bit like a brother to them.

Clearing her throat, Alison held out a timid hand to the woman. "Sorry for being so rude and staring. My name is Alison Vinter," she said, hiding her weariness of the stranger with a confident voice. The woman took her hand and shook it, smiling at first before visibly shuddering at the girl's icy touch.

"And my name's Nina Hummel!" Nina chirped in, following the actions of her older friend and awkwardly shaking the hand of the stranger while juggling the canvases in her other arm.

"It's nice to meet you guys. I'm Emma Swan. I'm, uh…" she paused, glancing quickly at Henry. "I'm Henry's birth mother."

_Oh_.

So when Henry had said that he was in town with his mom today, he meant he was out with his birth mom, not his adoptive mother, Regina.

The duo felt dumb, but they'd never seen Emma in Storybrooke before. She had to have come from out of town, and if Alison had to place a bet, she'd wager that the yellow beetle they stood next to was her car. "Where did you come from?" she asked bluntly, unintentionally sounding rude.

Emma didn't seem to care. "I've moved around the United States for a few years, but I live in Boston right now working as a bail bondsperson."

"So you work with the police?" Nina asked.

She shrugged. "Sometimes I have to act as the police… I'm a bail bondsperson but when someone skips out on their bail I like to take matters into my own hands."

"A bounty hunter?" Alison questioned with a raised brow. Emma nodded, slowly and carefully accepting the second half of her occupation.

"Oh that is so cool!" Nina bounced on the tip of her toes, enthralled by the enigmatic woman. She seemed so sophisticated and collected, and Nina never thought that she wanted a red leather jacket until right now because it just looked simply _badass._ One could say she was a little star-struck by the stranger. "So what brings you to Storybrooke?" she asked, genuinely curious. "We don't get many visitors here."

"Oh, well…" Hazel eyes peered down to Henry and an unsure but warm smile spread across her lips. "I came home from work yesterday and before I even had a chance to sit down, this kid's knocking on my door. I had to take him home, so here I am, for a little while, at least." She rolled her eyes and smirked at a recent memory that caused her extended visit. "Actually the mayor made me want to stay in town for a bit longer."

"_Regina_ convinced you to stay?" Nina spat. Alison shot her a glare but it went completely ignored. "No offense Henry, but Regina usually drives people away."

The blonde woman in the red leather jacket smirked harder, crossing her arms with confidence. "I can handle her type, no problem. She's already threatened to run me out of here, but that only makes me more determined to stay."

"Yeah? Well… good luck with that. If you need a place to hide, Alison and I live just down the street in those apartments," Nina turned and pointed to the ramshackle building that they called home, catching another glare from her roommate as she did so.

Emma glanced at the building before giving the girls a second look. She noticed what they wore, the art supplies in their hands, and the tired lines beneath Alison's eyes. The building Nina had pointed to was far from nice, but Emma understood; they didn't have much money, but the place was still their home, no matter how run-down it seemed. She just held a hand up and smiled at her offer. "Thanks, but I'll see how long it takes before I get kicked out of Granny's Bed and Breakfast before I start looking for someplace to hide." She turned towards Henry and motioned towards her car. "Ready to get going, kid?"

He nodded and said his goodbyes, Emma doing the same. "It was nice meeting you two."

"It was nice to meet you too!" Nina said, waving after them. "We'll see you around town!"

As the Beetle drove off down the main road, the two headed back in the direction of home. Alison looked behind them as they walked, watching the yellow car disappear down a side street before shooting daggers at her friend. "Why did you tell her where we live?!" she yelled, voice raised in disbelief. "You saw her car at the sheriff's office yesterday! How do you know she's not some kind of criminal?!"

"She's a bail bondsman; she probably went there to find out where Henry lived, duh!" Nina said, completely dismissing the other reason that Alison seemed so convinced of. "She doesn't live here, so I thought that, you know…"

Alison slapped her forehead and stared at her with wide eyes. "She's picking a fight with the mayor! Nina, do you really want _Regina_ knocking on our door wondering where the hell Henry's mystery mom is hiding?"

"Oh… ohh my God…"

"Just point at the library next time you tell a stranger where we live."

"…But it's closed."

"_I know_."

* * *

**AN: Oh man, I know I've said it before, but seriously, thank you guys for your kind reviews and messages. I really appreciate the support and I hope to keep this going for a bit. I can't promise regular updates each week, but I'll do my best!  
**

**I've seen a few people asking if other characters from Frozen will pop up and my answer is... yes. Our primary focus is on our two leading ladies, but eventually we'll see some familiar faces popping up, even if it is just for a cameo.**

**-Cryoshade**


	6. Just the Spare

Several weeks passed since the clock tower made its first move, and much to Nina's delight, it continued to tick ever on, counting the minutes of each day as it were meant to. She'd stay up late some nights just to watch it, getting abandoned by Alison out on the fire escape when early morning came around. Lately, her viewings of the tower became shorter, or she would just gaze at it from her window because of the gradual decrease of temperature. It was early December and winter was quickly approaching.

The redhead turned over and yawned lazily, wiping the drool from the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand as she opened her eyes for the first time that day. She smiled from the satisfaction of a good night's sleep and turned to face the other mattress in the room.

It was empty, as usual, with a blue blanket draped neatly over the cushioned surface. Things seemed to be progressing in Storybrooke, but the people remained the same. No matter what, Nina could never wake up before Alison.

She sat there for a few moments, stretching out the kinks in her back before finally getting to her feet and exiting the bedroom in search of her roommate. It didn't take long to find her as she was in her usual spot: in front of her canvas in the living room. "Morning," Nina said as she wandered in.

"Morning." The blonde didn't look up, too invested in her work, but that didn't stop the half-smile she gave to the friend who watched from the entrance of the room. "Honestly, do you ever wake up before noon anymore?"

Nina bit her lip, eyeing the clock in the kitchen and noticing it was ten minutes past the mentioned time. She grinned, moving further into the room and sitting on a small couch behind Alison. "I stay up too late," she admitted, "but sometimes I just can't sleep until I'm too tired to stay up! My brain just doesn't shut up sometimes and… whoa, Alison…"

Teal eyes went wide when she took notice of what the older girl was painting. Rolling green hills extended forever into a midday sky with hints of flora blooming in the blades of grass. Nina was amazed lately with how Alison was going out of her comfort zone with her landscape pieces, taking a break from mountains and snow covered valleys to paint beaches and forests filled with life. She had even sketched an emotional piece of a royal ship charging through a stormy sea, but for some reason she refused to paint it and kept it untouched in her sketchpad. Regardless, it was nice to see her painting again after her last dispute with Mr. Gold. "Alison, that's beautiful."

"Thanks!" The artist finished a brush stroke and took a step back, admiring her work and visualizing her next step in the painting. She set her palette down on a small tiered table that held her other paints and dunked the brush she had been using in a jar of clear water. Sitting down on the couch next to Nina, she leaned over with her elbows on her knees, intertwining multicolored, paint-stained fingers as creative thoughts swirled and occupied her mind. "I still got a ways to go with this one, but I like it so far. Not bad for a girl who mostly paints dead mountains, huh?"

She got a nudge in her elbow for that. "Mountains don't look so dead when _you_ paint them, Ali!" Nina told her, eyes bright in admiration of her friend's talent. "How do you make everything look so graceful?"

Alison shrugged, still completely focused on her work. "I dunno. I just paint what I see."

Nina hummed, taking notice of the intricate details painted into each blade of grass, how the flowers seemed to sway in an invisible breeze and shadows darkened a few patches of the valley from clouds that hadn't been painted yet.

"Hey Nina?"

"Yeah?"

"Could you do me a favor?" Alison's voice didn't seem so calm and shook a little on the edge of her nerve. It didn't go unnoticed by her roommate and she sat up, concerned.

"What is it?"

The blonde took hold of her braid, bringing it over her shoulder and absent-mindedly playing with the loose ends at the tail. The motion was starting to become a nervous habit and it never escaped Nina's notice. "Mr. Gold called and said that he had a payment ready for me to pick up today, but I have to finish this," she said, holding a hand up to the painting. "I have this vision in my head, and I don't want to lose it."

Nina understood because it happened before. They would leave the apartment sometimes during the middle of Alison's painting sessions, and when they returned, Alison would spend up to an hour just staring at the canvas, wondering where or how to continue with it. It paused her creative process, and if the visit with Gold went sour, it could stop it altogether for days.

"So you want me to go pick up the money?" Nina asked.

"Please?"

If it were any other person that she would have to collect money from, Nina would have said yes and would already be out the door. Talking to and dealing with Mr. Gold wasn't something she was good at and only Alison seemed to be able to work out his strange way of deal-making. It wasn't her forte, she'd be out of place without Alison there and she had unfortunate luck to make situations worse before making them better. She was about to refuse and say they could go together the next day when she was harshly reminded of something.

In just a few days, their rent and all the bills for the apartment were due. Alison had already paid the rent, but they were just shy of making their water bill and would have to take money out from their weekly grocery spending to pay for the electric on top of whatever else they could round up. If Nina didn't get that money today, there was a chance they wouldn't get their bills paid on time.

So as much as it scared her to visit the man with the gold-tipped cane, she had little choice. For both of their sakes, she'd have to talk to the pawn broker. "Sure, no problem," she lied. How bad could it be?

Alison sighed in relief and smiled warmly. "Thank you so much. I promise I'll make it up to you."

"Hey, don't worry about it! You're the one keeping a roof over our heads. How much am I supposed to get from him?"

"I'm not sure. He wouldn't tell me how many paintings sold. I got the payment from the last deal we made, so I'm really not expecting much unless everything is gone." She put her chin in her palm, smudging her cheek with green paint from her fingers. "Thirty percent my ass," she mumbled, still sore from the current deal she made with the shopkeeper.

Nina decided to leave her be and get ready for the day. She changed into her favorite red flannel shirt and a pair of jeans, combed her hair out from the ratty mess it usually ended up in every morning and threw on a baseball cap and warm coat before saying her goodbye and heading out the door. She ran to the end of the hallway and jumped on the staircase railing, sliding down it to the next landing and repeating the action once more to arrive at the lobby of their apartment building.

Immediately after stepping outside, she shoved her hands in her pockets and braced herself against a gust of chilly air. "Why does it have to be so cold?" she muttered, immediately regretting not taking a scarf with her to help cover her face from the wind. "It's just the start of December; it shouldn't be so nasty already!" Shoving her cap down further on her head, she headed into the blistery squall to the store she loathed.

The streets were mostly empty of pedestrians, save for the few who were brave enough to go out in the bone-chilling weather. Many others who had decided to go out were huddled in the warmth of their cars. Nina watched them as they drove past, jealous of their wealth and their ability to drive, but reminding herself to be thankful for what she had and that Alison was taking care of her until she found her dream job. At the very least, she thought as she came to the door of the antiquities dealer, she could take care of Alison when she needed help. Taking a deep breath, she opened the door and stepped inside, not wholly ready for what might take place.

Her heart pounded as she looked around the dark store. There were no other browsers, save for herself, and the shopkeeper wasn't present at the counter. Pursing her lips, she searched for any sign of Alison's paintings, finding one on prominent display behind the counter, and another two hanging up by other paintings on the right side of the store. _She had five when we came in here last,_ she thought to herself, trying to figure out how many paintings sold. _He ruined one of them, there are three here, so we sold one…_ She sighed, looking to the ceiling for some kind of blessing. _I just hope one is enough_.

She stood there in the middle of the store for a bit, wondering if Mr. Gold knew she came in, or if he was even here at all. Cautiously, she approached the counter and spotted a new service bell. She raised a hand to tap it when a loud thump startled her out of completing the motion.

"Don't. Touch it."

The well-dressed, cane-wielding man stepped out of the shadows, limping to his usual place behind the counter of his establishment. "Haven't you broken enough of my things?" he asked drily.

"W-Well I didn't know you were here" she stammered, "or maybe you didn't hear me so I thought I'd, um… I-I only broke that one bell, but this is a nice one, so shiny and…"

He only stared at her in a no-nonsense manner and she stopped her awkward rambling, tucking a few loose strands of hair behind her right ear and averting her eyes to the floor. "Ms. Hummel," Mr. Gold breathed, already tired of dealing with her apparent incompetence, "why are you here?"

Nina blinked and looked up, voice caught in her throat with clear inexperience of dealing with this man. "Alison said that you called and had a payment ready. I'm here to pick it up for her."

"Ah. That." He turned to the register, seemingly disappointed at Alison's absence, and Nina couldn't blame him. Alison was intelligent, witty and good with words when she wasn't too shy to say them. It was challenging to get anything past her that you didn't want her to see, and Mr. Gold enjoyed that challenge almost as much as she did before he destroyed her best painting. Now she dreaded every visit to the shop more than Nina did.

The graying man took an envelope from the side of the register and dropped it on the surface of the counter, not even giving Nina the decency of him handing it to her. "Everything she earned is in there," he said, placing his hands on the counter as Nina picked up the white folded paper. "No need to count it; I never make a mistake when it comes to money."

Of course he didn't, but Nina knew better. The envelope felt especially light and that didn't bode well. "How many paintings did she sell?" she asked with a raised brow as she folded open the envelope.

"Two. One of the smaller ones and…" he paused, turning around and gripping the frame of a wintry tundra that had been the primary display, taking it off the wall. "This one. The buyer is picking it up tomorrow."

Two wasn't bad. Usually the pace would quicken this time of year with people searching for Christmas presents, so in all likeliness, the other two would sell by the end of next week and Alison would have a few more ready to take their place at the same time. Nina sifted through the bills inside, confirming her fear that there were fewer than she believed should be there, and counted them. Her eyebrows drew together tightly in confusion… maybe she was doing the math wrong? She started over again, counting the bills, as few as they were, and came to the same solution.

It wasn't right. It couldn't be. She took the money out of the envelope completely and spread them for Mr. Gold to see. "This is only fifty-eight dollars."

The shopkeeper set down the painting and only glanced at her as he went to retrieve something else from his space behind the counter. "Yes, her profit from the sales. What of it?"

Nina's face flushed at his arrogance and she took a step closer, slamming the money on the wooden countertop with force. "You sold _two_ paintings! She makes more than this off of just one!"

Gold said nothing, having bent down to pick up something off the floor, but Nina already had enough of his short temper with her and his disdain for her presence. She leaned against the counter, trying to see what was more important than following up on the deal he made with her best friend. "Hey!" she yelled despite him being no more than a foot away. "Don't ignore me! You owe us money!"

He popped up suddenly, holding a wrapped canvas in his hands and glared at Nina's claim. "Do I now?" he asked, venom lacing his voice. "As I recall, I explained before that I use my own profits to frame these paintings and keep them in sellable shape."

Biting her tongue, Nina waited for him to continue, having learned from Alison that the best way to fight with words was to wait for the opportunity to turn what has already been said into a weapon. She watched cautiously as Mr. Gold unwrapped the canvas and placed it on the hook where the previous painting had been, and suddenly she lost all her will to fight.

Before her now on the primary display in his shop was a painting of a fjord in wintertime with a perfect little kingdom nestled against its calm waters.

"H-How…" was all she could manage to croak out. It was like a phoenix rising from the ashes. The tiny kingdom, so beautiful among the landscape, was completely unharmed. The last time Nina had seen it, it was crushed beneath the blunt end of a black sword, and Alison had fallen with it.

Mr. Gold knew all the significance it held, and he made no move to apologize. Instead, he opted to educate Nina on how he does business in this little town. "Every time Alison brings a painting to sell, we agree on a profit split and she signs a contract." He placed a hand firmly on the counter, then pointed down at it as if the contract were there. "That contract, each and every one she signs, is a legal document that states that upon her signature, the inventory she brings in becomes mine. She does not own these paintings; I do."

There were sides to every deal that was made, and Nina wasn't sure she wanted to know this dark side of business. Suddenly she wished she had Alison there with her to help her feel confident here, but alone as she was, she felt completely out of place. She could only watch as Mr. Gold tapped the frame of the resurrected artwork.

"When someone damages my property, I make sure I get what I'm owed. I had to take money from her profits to make the repairs."

Heat rose to Nina's cheeks again and she stomped her foot, quickly losing her hold on the situation. "That's not fair! You're the one who damaged it in the first place!"

"According to the contract she last signed, any damage that occurs to my property is the sole responsibility of the provider."

Outwardly, Nina seemed to be calm, but inside her heart and mind were screaming. How could Alison sign off on such a thing? She was too smart to agree to such a ridiculous clause. Regardless of her reasons, it didn't make sense. Despite the cost of the repair, however much that might be, and the low thirty percent profit they should be making, it didn't completely explain the lack of cash in the envelope. "There's still some missing," Nina insisted, desperate for any kind of pity he might give.

He didn't budge. Instead, he shot another cannonball at her sails. "I said you owed me a new bell, didn't I?"

Wide eyes stared down at the shiny bronze bell that sat cleanly on the counter next to the register. The base was wooden and carved with intricate little details, and she would bet the $58 in her hand that it rang so clear you could hear it outside of the shop. He spared no dime in picking out such an extravagant piece that was such a small part of the store.

Her hands shook, not from the cold of the approaching winter air but from anger… from defeat. She was not good at fighting against him; that much was clearly obvious. The cash she had in hand was all she had now, but she couldn't just go home like this. No, she couldn't go home and show Alison that all of her hard work and sleepless hours were only worth fifty-eight dollars. She just couldn't.

So she did the only thing she could think to do. She bowed her head, letting her red hair spill over her shoulders to hide her shameful face with it and allowed the shadow from her baseball cap to conceal the hurt look in her eyes. "Please," she said quietly and sincerely, "we don't have a lot of money right now. We're going to starve if we keep up like this… if you could just give Alison what she was supposed to get and let her pay you back with the next paintings—"

Mr. Gold slammed the butt of his cane on the floor and scared Nina out of her plea.

"NO ONE breaks a deal with me!" he yelled, sending Nina a step back in fear. "Do you think I run some kind of charity service, Ms. Hummel? This is business, not some child's game." He chuckled at the idea of it and turned to her. "Well, since you like to play games, let's play a new one."

He swiftly held the golden grip of his cane up to the painting of the fjord and watched in amusement as Nina held her arms out to it, wanting to tear it off the wall from where she stood. "Tell you what Dearie," he smiled, "I'm not going to sell this one. I'll keep it right here in my shop, in this same spot, as a reminder of what happens when you don't agree to my terms. Now if you or Ms. Vinter get greedy or argue with the way I do business again, I might just lose my temper." He tapped the frame with the hilt of his cane, further emphasizing his point. "Have I made myself clear, Ms. Hummel?"

She couldn't speak. She barely even nodded in response.

"Good. Now get out of my shop before you break something else."

Numb legs hastily carried a crushed soul outside of the store and she stood there for a few moments, letting the chill breeze rustle her hair and carry away the heat of her rising emotions. She felt like she could cry, just break down right there and sob, but she didn't want Mr. Gold to see her look so pathetic. Her legs took her some ways down the street, instinctively heading back home before something in her mind snapped her out of her stupor and she stopped, wide-eyed and scared.

What was she going to tell Alison?


	7. The Talk

Nina didn't know what to do.

She wandered up and down the main street of downtown Storybrooke, passing by the same landmarks repeatedly as she held a hand to the brim of her baseball cap. Every once in a while her instincts tried to send her home, but the closer she came to the apartment, the more scared she got and she'd retreat back into town.

Alison depended on her to get the money she was owed for her paintings, and Nina only received a consequence of her own actions. The more she paced the streets, the more she realized that if she hadn't broken the service bell in her last visit to Mr. Gold's shop, then she'd likely have another twenty dollars in her pocket. She knew at some point she'd have to pay him for the replacement, but she didn't expect him to pick out such an elaborate little bell. It was meant to be hit; it would wear out eventually.

The feeling of defeat was raw and deep, but even worse was the fear creeping into her mind. She remembered all too well the few occasions when she had to go without working electricity in the apartment or even running water for weeks. She had to visit local establishments to properly use the restroom and begged Ruby once to let her use her shower when she hadn't bathed for two weeks straight. She only made it through that rough time because Alison was smart enough to horde water in old milk jugs before they were completely cut off.

Her heart skipped a beat when she thought of the blonde and she nearly tripped over a crack in the sidewalk.

Alison was going to be so disappointed in her. She trusted her to do this one simple thing and Nina couldn't even put up a proper fight to get the money they deserved. She thought of the paintings hanging up in Mr. Gold's shop and all the love and effort Alison put into each fine detail. She thought of how broken her friend was when the painting of the fjord had been ruined and how it took her weeks just to muster up the courage to continue her craft. Now that she was painting again, Nina was only going to come home with little to show for her efforts.

It was going to crush her, and it crushed Nina knowing that she had to be the one to deal the final blow.

_How do I even tell her? 'Hey, I know Mr. Gold screwed us over but he's holding your favorite painting hostage so I took the money and ran.' Yeah, nice one Nina, fantastic job you did there. Maybe you can tell her that you want to move back home next._

She stopped walking, blinking at her thoughts and trying to literally shake them away with a toss of her head. _No! You can't just abandon her now! God, you're so terrible to her! What kind of person even-_

"Oof!"

Her shoulder collided roughly with something and she stumbled back a few steps, looking up and realizing that she had hit a person instead. "Ah! I'm so sorry! I was just, I didn't mean to, I—"

"Nah, it's all right, don't worry about it, kid."

Nina recognized the voice and focused on just who exactly had become the victim of her incoordination. "Oh! Emma!"

The blonde in her presence smiled in recognition. "Nina Hummel, right?" she asked.

Nina nodded, happy that the newcomer remembered her name from the one time they talked. "So Regina's letting you stay around town, huh?"

"Well, she doesn't really have much of a choice, seeing that I'm the sheriff now," she said, motioning to the shiny golden star badge clipped to her belt. She shrugged and looked around at the buildings. "I didn't think I'd stay here this long, but I guess I needed the change."

Emma seemed satisfied with herself and Nina couldn't help but feel envious of her for it. The sheriff took notice of her avoiding gaze and looked at her seriously. "Are you okay?"

"Huh? Yeah. Why?"

"Well, you just seem like you're distracted."

"No, I'm tired, that's all."

A tilt of her head and an expression that just said '_Please'_, there was no hiding that Emma didn't believe her for a second. "You're lying. Come on, walk with me and tell me what's wrong. You're too young to have trouble."

Nina hadn't known the newly appointed sheriff for very long, but she needed someone to listen to her, someone who wasn't Alison. She kept her hands in her pockets and her eyes cast to the cement as she followed Emma's lead, unsure of where they were going but seemingly unable to care.

Her words were quick as she briefly explained their financial situation and recounted the two most recent visits she had to the pawn shop. As she got closer to the current day's events her voice got louder and she spoke even faster, slurring her words together in a single speedy sentence. The emotions she had hidden within the shop were coming out and she just couldn't hide her anger anymore.

"He's ruining our lives!" she exclaimed, huffing to catch her breath from the long-winded expulsion of her troubles.

Emma's eyes narrowed and she stopped walking mid-stride. "I can't say if he is ruining your life, but he _is_ scamming you. I'll talk to him and—"

"No!" Nina cried, turning to the blonde and reaching out to grip her arm to keep her from marching back to Mr. Gold's shop. All the anger she held just moments ago faded into the cold wind and her mouth was twisted in a conflicted frown. "Please, don't. He talks funny."

Emma blinked, staring with her mouth open at the hyperactive, troubled girl. "He _what_?"

Nina released Emma's arm and waved her hands in front of her face, silently and awkwardly dismissing her last words as she tried to think of a better way to say them. "I mean he, um… he uses a lot of big words, and he'll say one thing but mean another, and he talks us in circles. I mean, me, he talks me in circles." She sighed, fully knowing that she hadn't convinced Emma not to get involved. "Look, it's just a bad idea to mess with him. You seem like you're good with words and everything, but I'm afraid if you tried something, he'll just make things harder on Alison, and she's stressing out enough as it is."

The sheriff glanced at the ground briefly before continuing on her way in the direction they were heading with Nina closely following. It was her duty to keep the residents of Storybrooke safe, but questioning how a shop owner did business and convincing them to change their ways wasn't exactly in her realm of power, nor was it any of her concern. Still, she felt bad for the girls. "Can't she sell her paintings on her own?"

The redhead pouted, already dissatisfied with the words she was about to speak. "It's really hard to get people interested in buying a painting when they don't have a place to look at them. She's a great painter, trust me, but she's not known well enough for people to come to her with requests and commissions. We can't afford to run a gallery, and the apartment is way too small to act like one. I think when she realized that she started talking to the shop owners around town to try and find someplace to display her paintings and get her name out there. Somehow she found Mr. Gold and stuck with him."

"And, believe it or not," she said, laughing pathetically, "he gets the best prices out of her paintings. There aren't many artists or painters in Storybrooke, so the other vendors want to sell them for cheap. We'd be making less if we didn't go through him."

"So you're stuck."

It hurt to hear, but it was the truth. "We're hopelessly stuck."

The blonde's lips were drawn in an even line and she turned from the young woman walking beside her. Her eyes wandered to the buildings around her as her mind searched for the right thing to say. She sighed quietly, not sure if there was anything that really could be said without possibly upsetting the girl.

"Maybe you should try helping Alison out?"

"I just did!" Nina cried, frustrated. "All it got me was a verbal beating and fifty-eight dollars! Aren't you listening?!"

Emma turned back at her and hardened her glare. "Are _you_ listening? You need to _help_ her. She's caring for the both of you, and you're…"

Hazel eyes softened when Nina increased the distance between them and shoved her hands into the pockets of her coat. She frowned deeply and stared at the sidewalk; she had heard this lecture before and it obviously bothered her.

But it didn't stop her from talking about it. "I'm afraid," she said softly. "I just… I don't know. I don't want to have a job that I don't like and then have to work there for the rest of my life because of how bad I need the money. Emma," she started, finally looking up again at the woman she was addressing, "I feel like nothing ever changes around here. Everyone always acts the same; everybody goes through the motions and nothing new happens. I don't want to get stuck at a job where nothing ever changes and I'm miserable every day."

Emma reached out and put a hand on Nina's shoulder, looking her square in the eyes. "You don't have to be _stuck_. All I'm saying is that you try having a small job somewhere in town until you find that thing you really want to do."

The words rang through Nina's ears and she shut her eyes, trying to force them out of her mind. She shirked away from Emma's touch and just looked at her as if she couldn't possibly understand. "I don't know what I want to do!" she yelled, clearly frustrated. "I'm not good at anything! I'm clumsy, I'm not very smart, I can't… I'm not talented like Alison is."

They stopped walking, having made it to Emma's car parked at the police station, but she ignored it for now. The young woman before her looked so defeated and hopeless and she felt guilty for bringing her to this point. "Look, Nina… I don't know you that well, but you can't give up so easily. You aren't Alison; don't compare yourself to her."

"But—"

"Listen!" Emma said harshly, holding up a hand to further emphasize her word. "Nobody knows what they want to do for the rest of their lives until they go out and try to find it. It's not going to be easy, and it might take a while, but… just consider what I said about helping Alison, okay?"

The redhead didn't look up for a while, but when she did, her sad smile assured Emma that the message had gotten through.

But despite the words that had been spoken, it still did nothing to solve the situation that would be occurring in the tiny apartment in just a few days. The reality of it didn't hit far from home for the sheriff. "I'm staying with Mary Margaret Blanchard in the apartments around the corner from Granny's Diner," she said, seemingly unsure of her words. "We don't have a whole lot, but if you guys need anything…"

"Thank you."

"Would you like a ride home?" Emma asked, motioning towards her car.

On any other day, Nina would have been giddy with the chance of riding in the cute beetle, but after the advice and offer of help Emma had just given her, she felt as though a ride down the street would be taking too much kindness. She backed away and smiled, warmly this time. "Thanks, but it's not far from here."

Emma returned the smile as she opened the driver's side door. "You take care, kid."

* * *

Halfway home, the icy wind had picked up and Nina wished she had taken Emma's offer for a ride to the apartment. She started running down the street, hands shoved deep in her pockets while trying to think of how she would break the bad news to Alison.

But when she got inside the apartment she shared with her best friend, the speech she had been practicing in her mind completely flew out the window when she caught blue eyes staring wide at her.

"I was getting worried that Mr. Gold had you arrested or something!" Alison said, calling out from the living room as Nina took off her shoes. The redhead smiled half-heartedly as she draped her coat over one of the chairs in the kitchen. She glanced at the clock. Had she really been gone for _three_ hours?

"Oh, uh, yeah, sorry about that. I kind of ran into Ruby," she lied, "and she wouldn't stop talking about this guy she saw…"

"Scruffy-face, chiseled looks and dark hair?"

"Yup. And then I ran into Emma and talked with her for a bit." Tentatively, she reached into her coat pocket and removed the white envelope from it. Her heart raced with nerves as her mind replayed her entire conversation with Mr. Gold that afternoon. Teal eyes darted from the envelope to the painter in the other room.

How was she supposed to do this?

"Nina, why are you just standing around?" Alison's voice made her jump and the younger girl now focused on her friend. "Come in here! I'm almost done!"

Shaky legs forced an aching heart across the threshold to the living room and she sat on the couch, just as she had that morning, to admire the work of her talented roommate. Somehow, Alison had improved the original version Nina saw just hours ago. Clouds now floated high above the rolling hills, giving source to the shadows over detailed blades of grass that were so individualized they could be counted. The encroaching forest in the distance was no longer a forest of unidentified trees, but a forest of pine so fresh you could nearly catch the scent through the canvas.

"Alison… it's even beautifuller than it was before," Nina gasped, amazed. As usual, her compliments put a rosy blush across the cheeks of her friend.

"You say that every time I finish a painting," she laughed as she set her palette down. "But really, thank you. And thank you for going to Mr. Gold's for me today!" she said with enthusiasm, truly appreciative for the aid of her friend. "How did that go?"

"Ah! Well, you know, Mr. Gold is Mr. Gold. Always cranky and stubborn; you know him!" Nina laughed nervously. Her usual presence was off, but Alison didn't seem to notice. She just smiled contently as she soaked her brushes in the jar of water she kept on hand to quickly rinse them. "Yeah, he's a real stinker alright…"

"He didn't give you any trouble, did he?" Alison asked.

"No, not much. He uh, he got a new service bell, so he took that out of the pay."

Alison shrugged and smirked, unbelievably confident despite the loss of money. "Those are pretty cheap." She saw Nina's worried face and sighed, giving her a warm, wide smile. "It's okay! I'm not mad that you broke it! Just don't touch anything the next time we go in there."

"…It's a really nice bell."

The blonde's smile faded slowly, but her positive attitude remained. "It couldn't have cost much," she said, removing herself from the canvas and sitting on the couch next to her roommate. "How much did we make?"

Nina wanted to just hand over the envelope and let her count the contents so she wouldn't have to say anything, but she felt like it would just get her hopes up.

"Fifty-eight dollars." She couldn't even look her in the eyes when she said it.

"What?"

The pause was long and Nina couldn't stop her voice from shaking. "Fifty-eight dollars, Ali. That's all he gave me."

Blue eyes blinked, dumbstruck. Part of her wanted to laugh, to tear the envelope from Nina's hands and count the bills inside for herself and just laugh because Nina was joking.

But Nina wasn't joking. They _never_ joked about money.

Alison's jaw fell slack with unspoken words and she held her palms open on her knees. Heat rose up her back and touched her ears from a mix of anger and confusion.

"What did I do wrong?" she asked quietly to no one, but Nina still answered.

"I-It was my fault. I broke the bell…"

"It shouldn't cost that much!" Alison argued. "No matter how fancy it is, it shouldn't cost that much! How many paintings did he sell?"

Nina shrunk back, afraid to answer. "Two."

"So then why…?" She stopped, calculating prices, costs and the share percentages in her head before she smacked her temples to her awaiting palms. "What did I do wrong?" she asked again, desperate.

The bit of information Nina was withholding was important and necessary to answering Alison's question, but it would hurt. Then again, it would hurt Alison even more to not know the reason why she had been scammed out of more money that she deserved.

So Nina took a deep breath in, removed her baseball cap so her eyes could be seen, and exhaled. She played with the brim of her cap as she spoke. "Mr. Gold said… the last time we went to see him, you signed a contract that said _any_ damage that happened to your paintings was your responsibility. He said that he had to recover from the loss of product." She wouldn't tell her that Mr. Gold had actually used the money to repair her favorite painting and was holding it hostage in his shop; her last words alone were already taking effect.

"I'm so stupid…" Alison's muffled voice croaked as her head was buried in her lap. Nina reached out for her, placing a hand on her back and rubbing it in circles, trying to let the motion distract Alison a little from the millions of thoughts that would be racing through her head.

"Don't say that. You're not stupid."

The blonde picked her head up with tears in her eyes, but they stubbornly refused to fall. "I was so upset about that painting the last time that I didn't even read the contract I signed," she admitted. She pinched the bridge of her nose, trying desperately to think rationally while her emotions were starting to get the better of her. "Nina, I'm so sorry. I let you down."

"You let _me_ down?" Nina asked, genuinely surprised. She hugged the blonde sideways and rested her head on her shoulder. "I feel like I let you down. I couldn't convince Mr. Gold to pay us better. If you were there…"

"I don't know if I could have done any better. And I mean that. He has a weird way of…"

"He talks funny."

Alison blinked once, then smirked and leaned her head to rest on top of Nina's. "Yeah, I guess you could put it that way."

They sat in silence for a few more moments, both gazing at the nearly finished landscape on the easel.

"What happens now?" came Nina's quiet voice.

"We get ready," Alison answered immediately. "We don't have to worry about water this time, we just won't have power. We'll only have a few days to get rid of the milk and eggs and whenever we get more money we can stock up on more canned goods and bread."

She could almost hear Nina frown.

"We've been through this before. We can do it again."

* * *

**AN: Hey guys! Due to some personal things going on, I won't be updating next week, but to make up for it I'll have one more chapter to post tomorrow and another the day after. I can't just leave them like this...**

**~Cryoshade**


	8. Breaking Point

The blackout in their tiny apartment started five days ago.

In the beginning it was fine. They'd finished eating any perishable foods they had so it wouldn't go to waste and rationed what canned goods they had to make it last. The fifty-eight dollars they earned from Mr. Gold was being saved for an emergency, or for whenever they ran out of food, whichever happened first.

Winter had come in full force, dropping the temperature outside to the twenties and the air seeped into the apartment from their bedroom window. The heat inside their building was always turned off to reduce the landlord's rent payment to Mr. Gold, so there truly was no escape from the cold in their small home. They'd moved their mattresses to the living room and set up Alison's art supplies in the bedroom so she could paint while the sun shone through the window. That window was the only source of light in the entire place; every other room was pitch black.

After their last blackout, Alison had bought some candles to help with the lighting issue, but like everything else, it was a limited source. A candle could only burn for so long.

But despite the lack of power and a dwindling food supply, they remained positive. Alison worked throughout the day and Nina would volunteer to take her portraits to Mr. Gold, partly because she wanted to warm up inside of the heated shop, but mostly because she wanted to spare Alison the heartbreak of finding her best painting repaired and held hostage by the man with the gold-tipped cane.

They would sing together and laugh together in the dark, most of their camaraderie being led by Nina. She'd make shadow puppets in the candlelight before bed and tell Alison amusing stories of trolls and fairies, letting her imagination run wild in the supernatural fantasies. It went on for the few days, but on the fifth day, their time off the grid was starting to take its toll.

Alison looked tired all the time, having to wake up well before sunrise to get her supplies ready to start her paintings. Her work was suffering from her lack of sleep and the rush to get them out to market; details that would have normally earned her a better price went forgotten in her haste. Her nights were spent tossing and turning, trying to convince herself that everything would be alright but completely terrified that she wasn't making enough to even keep them in the apartment.

Nina wasn't doing much better. The enthusiastic and hyper girl was gone, now replaced by a quiet, sad woman who spent most of the day holding her hands over a candle flame. Encouraging words she had spared for her best friend were now falling on deaf ears as the reality was setting in, and the redhead didn't know what to do to keep them both happy. She was cold, she was hungry, and every day she thought about moving on, about leaving the tiny apartment behind and living someplace warm where she'd be taken care of.

She thought back to the night the clock tower finally moved and how excited she had been. She saw it as a symbol of hope that things would finally change.

As she huddled against the candle that day, she bowed her head and closed her eyes in despair. Nothing changed. Everything was the same as it always was, and it would always be the same. She was such a fool for thinking that a simple clock would make a difference in this town.

"Dammit!"

The voice and the sound of something crashing brought Nina out of her self-loathing and she picked her head up. "Alison?"

Abandoning her warm candle, Nina got to her feet and hurried from the living room to the kitchen. From there she stared to the open door of their shared bedroom and she could only look sadly at the scene inside.

The easel, and whatever painting that had been sitting on it, was knocked to the floor. The small table that usually held art supplies was toppled. Brushes and paints were strewn around the room and a jar of murky water had been spilled, seeping into and staining an old bed sheet that covered the gray carpet.

In the middle of all this chaos was Alison. She sat against the wall, just beneath the window, crying as she held her head in paint-stained hands.

Nina wasn't sure what to do. She'd seen Alison upset before, and anger was a rare emotion for the usually timid girl, but she's never seen her like this. Slowly, cautiously, she approached the bedroom, reaching a hand out to the sobbing woman. "Alison, what's wrong?"

Panicked blue eyes glanced up at her through messy blonde bangs. Alison didn't say anything; she just sat there and breathed through her tears as her frown grew deeper.

Suddenly she sprang to her feet and bolted past her friend, heading straight for the door.

"Alison, stop!"

Nina whirled, barely grasping Alison's wrist as pale fingers grasped the door handle.

"Let me go!" she yelled desperately as the redhead tried to pry her from the door. She tried shoving her away, but it only made Nina more determined. She let go of her wrist and wrapped her arms around Alison's stomach, firmly planting her feet to keep her from escaping.

"No! What are you doing?!" Nina withstood Alison's attempts to shake her off and she kept up her stance to keep her from going out the door. Somehow during the struggle, their legs got tangled and with one good tug, Nina brought the older girl and herself crashing to the floor. She grunted when her shoulder struck the linoleum but her concern was primarily for the person in her arms.

Alison shook as sobs were forced from her throat, and Nina only held on to her tighter, fighting back tears of her own. "Please… Alison, please talk to me," she begged, desperate for understanding.

The blonde pressed her palms to her forehead again in attempt to calm herself enough to speak coherently. She sniffled and shook her head in defeat. "I failed you _again_," she mustered through a closed throat. "Nothing I paint is good enough anymore. Nothing's selling."

Alison had gone through bouts of artistic block before, but nothing quite like this. She felt useless… _hopeless_, and it hurt Nina to see her that way. "You're not failing me. Don't say that." Her voice was warm and caring, but she refused to let go of her friend in fear that she would run away and never return.

But despite the words of assurance, Alison refused to believe her. "We're going to end up on the streets, Nina!" she said, panicked. "It's all my fault…!"

"So you're just going to run? What's that going to do?" Nina tightened her grip as tears slowly fell down her freckled cheeks. She smiled sadly and lightly hit the back of the blonde's neck with her head. "You're the logical one; you know that's not going to solve anything."

The older girl stilled in her arms and Nina sighed, thankful that Alison didn't bail on their desperate situation to make hers even more desperate. From their position on the floor, Nina was able to glance at the haphazard bedroom and the window inside. "Just take a day off and sleep in tomorrow, okay?" she said with a smile. Her eyes were focused on the window when she got a nod of confirmation. She could barely see it against the gray winter sky, but she was almost sure it had started to snow.

At any other time, she would have been excited for it, but the arrival of white flakes only meant that the night would be colder. Nina surely wasn't looking forward to it.

* * *

Alison had forced herself to take a shower despite Nina insisting that the water was too cold for her to safely get clean. She weathered the icy drops perfectly, completely unaffected by the chill and washed away her fears from earlier. Afterwards she cleaned up the mess she made in the bedroom and left it the way she liked it to be for whenever she decided to return to work.

Dinner that night was canned spaghetti and half a can of corn. Nina would try to heat up her food by placing her fork over the candle they were eating by, and it worked for a little while until she burned her tongue on the heated tines.

The apartment grew considerably colder as the night wore on, not that Alison seemed to care. She lounged around the dark apartment in just her pajamas while Nina seemed to be bundled up in a long sleeved shirt, a t-shirt over that and a sweater. Alison had put on a hoodie just so the younger girl didn't feel so strange.

They retired to the living room early that night, both exhausted from their fluxing emotions and malnourishment. Alison welcomed the reprieve from the day and fell asleep quickly, passing out as soon as she closed her eyes.

But she wouldn't stay asleep for long.

Blue eyes blinked into the darkness wearily as an odd noise roused her back into consciousness. It was a quivering whimper, followed by a dull clicking noise and silence. The noise would start again and stop a few moments later, not enough to agitate the blonde but make her curious instead.

She sat up slowly, rubbing her eyes and trying to find where the noise had been coming from. "Nina?" she whispered in the dark, wondering if her friend had been woken by the noise as well. She turned and faced the other mattress.

She didn't expect to discover that the noise was coming from Nina. She didn't expect her to be in the fetal position, either.

The younger girl held her arms and had drawn her knees up to her chest, trying hard to keep in whatever body warmth had been trapped between her layers of clothing and her blanket. Her whole body shivered and her jaw quivered, chattering her teeth together and producing the odd noise Alison had been hearing. Occasionally she whined, the unforgiving winter air clearly overcoming her.

She was in pain, and Alison was helpless to watch. It hurt her to see the normally bubbly redhead reduced to such a state, and she felt worse that there was very little she could do to help.

Swiftly and silently, she did the only thing she knew she could do.

She rose from her mattress and went to the kitchen, lit a candle and carried it back to the living room. She set the holder on an end table by the couch, close to where Nina slept but not close enough to where she could accidently knock it over if she reached out for it. Alison then took her own blanket and draped it over Nina's green one.

There was no reason why Alison was blatantly immune to the cold, but she just was. She didn't need a blanket to keep her warm but only used one for the simple comfort of it. Hoodies and sweaters were only worn because she didn't want to look odd walking around in a snowstorm with just a t-shirt on.

If she gave off any sort of body heat, she would gladly lay next to Nina to help warm her up, but she didn't. Nina always told her how her skin was frighteningly cold, even in summer. No, if Alison tried to help any further, she'd likely only make the situation worse.

So she sat back down on her mattress and watched silently as her friend fought off the cold. She hugged her knees to her chest and rested her chin on folded arms, hoping and praying that tomorrow would be warmer and kinder to them.

* * *

She didn't know what time she had fallen asleep, only that she had woken up far past sunrise and the day had started without her.

Alison blinked wearily, brushing blonde out of her eyes and wiping, _ew_, drool from the corner of her mouth. She must've really been tired if it warranted a pool of spit on her pillow.

When she sat up she noticed the feeling of fabric falling from her arm. Her blue blanket had returned to her sometime while she was sleeping, as well as Nina's green one. The candle, now considerably shorter, had been snuffed, and the twin mattress to her own was empty.

_Nina woke up before me? Wow. That's new._ Alison smirked at the thought. _Maybe she was right about that clock making things change._

She got up and roamed the apartment in pursuit of the redhead, ready to tease her about her early morning at her own expense, but it didn't take long to find that she wasn't home. Her shoes were missing and so was her coat.

_She must've gone out someplace to warm up. No biggie._

It truly was no big deal. Despite Nina not having a job, Alison didn't expect her to stay home all day, especially in their current situation. It was normal.

Breakfast today was a packet of raw toaster pastries; one for now and one to be saved for later to hold off the hunger until dinner. Despite her late start to the day, Alison still found the drive and energy to paint regardless of her limited access to the sun through the window.

She stood and stared at the painting she started on, trying hard to figure her next move with it. It began as an isolated mountain peak in the midst of a snowstorm, but she wanted to add something to it. Perhaps a hut on the peak itself or a majestic castle built into its side would suffice, but she grew frustrated over the concept, unable to clearly see the vision through her fears of possibly losing the apartment and becoming homeless.

That was the point she got to yesterday when she lashed out and knocked over the easel and the table with her supplies. She usually kept her emotions, but when things got desperate like this, she simply couldn't handle it, especially when Nina wasn't able to bring her out of whatever dark place she thought herself into.

The hasty brushstrokes on the mountain peak still agitated her. She just wanted to throw the canvas out the window and start from scratch on a new one.

The wonderful thing about painting, however, is that no matter how many mistakes you make, you can always fix them with more paint.

An idea sprang forth to Alison's mind. It was simple, perhaps a little elementary, but for the moment it was perfect. She took the widest brush she had at her disposal and applied a healthy amount of bright olive-green paint to a small bowl on her table. After coating the bristles with paint she pressed them to the canvas, covering the messy mountain peak with an even layer of green. Gone was her frustration from yesterday; the canvas was blank once more.

While waiting for the canvas to dry she prepared a palette of various pinks, starting with a subdued pale color and mixing it with a few reds to end up with a secondary line of rosy varieties for shading. As she set about her task, her eyes would flick back and forth between her palette and the front door, eagerly anticipating the return of her best friend. It wasn't like her to leave without telling her where she was going, or at least leave a note in case Alison had missed her in passing.

_It's only been a few hours_, she thought to herself as she tore her lingering gaze away from the door. _She's probably at Mary Margaret's place taking a shower or something. She'll be back soon._

She tried to push away her fears and continued on with the painting, outlining a shape of flower petals and filling them in with pale pink before adding an excruciating amount of detail and features to make them stand out. Once she finished with the petals, she mixed up a variety of greens to create the stem from which the flower bloomed, as well as two long leaves to accentuate the petals above. The whole process took her late into the afternoon, but as she put finishing touches on the background of the portrait, it was nearly complete.

Usually Alison was able to lose herself in the creative process and free her mind from whatever troubling thoughts plagued it, but today, painting had only seemed to make it worse. Doubt and fear crept upon her like the growing darkness outside her window and her frequent looks to the front door were becoming longer. Once she set the paint down, she sat against the wall as the daylight died, hugging her knees as her hope began to dwindle.

_She's not coming home._

She buried her head in her arms when the thought struck her.

_She's probably trying to find someone else to room with. I can't blame her… I can't take care of her, I never could, not the way she deserves to be taken care of. She doesn't deserve to live in such a small, cold place when she tries so hard just to keep me together._

Utterly convinced, Alison looked up to glance at the painting once more before she was completely brought down by the reality of her best friend abandoning her. She fell to her side, unable to cry but grieved nonetheless and simply stared at the wall in the darkness. She was alone… and she never knew just how much she hated the feeling until now.

Nothing moved her. Not the growling of her stomach or the sound of her neighbors arguing next door. Her mind was a flurry of chaotic thoughts and ramblings mixed with memories of good times she shared with her roommate.

"Alison?"

She missed her so badly she could almost hear her voice as if she were right there.

"Alison!" And it was louder now. Did she really need that copper-headed spitfire that badly?

"Alison, are you home? God, light a candle or something, ya hermit…"

Blue eyes blinked in the darkness. There was no way her mind could replicate the harmless name-calling that she loved and hated all the same. She sat up, peering into the kitchen from the bedroom. "N-Nina?" she called out.

A figure in the kitchen suddenly turned, and even though Alison couldn't see it, she could almost hear the smile cracking on her face. "There you are! Gosh, normally you have like three candles burning by now. I got a little worried that you passed out or something."

Alison chuckled, more from relief than from the assumption that she had been so malnourished that she couldn't keep on. She walked blindly into the kitchen, letting the streetlight glow from the window guide her into the room and to the counter where a set of candles and lighter were waiting.

"Where were you?" she asked immediately as she flicked the thumbwheel of the lighter to strike the flint. Her hand shook as the flame ignited and she held it to the wick of one of the candles, setting a warm glow across the room. If she hadn't spent most of her day grieving over the loss of her friend, she'd be lecturing her like a parent would scold their child. _Why didn't you tell me where you were? Why didn't you leave a note? Why couldn't you call me?_

Now from the light of the candle, Alison could see that Nina had a brown paper bag in her arms and, despite their financial situation, was dressed very nice. She wore clean dress slacks, a light pink blouse and short-heeled black leather shoes. Her wool coat hung over the back of one of the folding chairs and Alison raised a brow at her. "And where the heck did you get those clothes?"

Nina smiled a cheeky smirk and she set down the bag on the kitchen table. "I kinda borrowed them from Mary-Margaret…" Alison's hard stare told her to elaborate, but before she did, she reached into the bag and pulled out a container and held it out to Alison. "Here. She made some soup. It's still hot so I'd-"

"Nina, I don't care about some damn soup right now!" Alison's voice was sharp and loud, and despite her appreciation for her friend's return, she really wanted to know why she had to spend the whole day worrying about her. "Where were you?!"

"I-I'm sorry, I know I should have called you, but…" Nina averted her gaze to the floor before finally meeting Alison's sharp stare once more. She couldn't help the smile from spreading across her face when the blonde looked completely confused and ready for an answer. "Alison… I got a job!"

Silence.

"You what?"

"Well, okay, I got two jobs actually…"

"You WHAT?"

Nina's face fell and she frowned. "I thought you'd be happy about this."

It wasn't quite registering in the older girl what the younger had been telling her. Her mouth was agape, and when she noticed it she quickly snapped it shut and shook off her stupor. "I-I'm… I am happy, Nina, really I am, but… wow, two?"

A neatly combed head of copper nodded enthusiastically as she found herself embraced in a warm but chilly hug. Wrapping her arms around the taller girl's shoulders, she sighed in relief. "I just really wanted to be able to help you for once," she admitted, thinking back to over a week ago when she had tried to stand up to Mr. Gold and only returned home with fifty-eight dollars to show for her efforts. She felt so defeated and so unsure of herself, but mostly she felt she had let Alison down.

Alison had felt much of the same, feeling as though she couldn't care for Nina enough to allow the younger girl to explore career options and follow her dreams. "Nina, you didn't have to-"

"No, I did." She pulled back from the hug and looked up at her friend, feeling warm and confident in what she had done. "I've just been sitting around waiting for things around me to change on their own without having to do anything, but I finally realized that if I want things to be different, _I_ have to be the one who changes."

It brought a smile to Alison's face to see her so responsible, but it also brought up old arguments the two would have whenever she'd bring up getting a job. "I thought you were going to wait until you found that one thing you wanted to do for the rest of your life?" she asked, to which Nina scrunched up her nose.

"I don't know what that is yet, but I still want to find it, and I won't give up until I do!" she proclaimed valiantly. Her determination was met with a growling stomach that they both heard and they laughed together, noting the late hour. "Come on, let's eat!"

They sat at the table and scarfed down bowls of the warm soup as Nina recounted her day. She left the apartment that morning intent on going out and getting hired someplace, but before that she needed a warm shower to clean up and get ready to hopefully land an interview. She went to Mary-Margaret Blanchard's apartment to take up Emma's offer of help from the previous week, but was so focused on what she was doing that she forgot to leave a note for Alison, who was sleeping in for the first time in a long time.

Emma and Mary-Margaret had been home at the time of Nina's arrival and offered to help her get ready. While Emma searched job listings in the newspaper and on the internet, Mary-Margaret loaned Nina some of her professional clothing to help her look the part and make a statement, seeing as Nina's wardrobe lacked anything white-collared or professional.

She recounted how she had walked from business to business, trying to get in anywhere from the florist to the auto repair shop, but getting denied due to her lack of experience. Finally she found success answering an ad from Granny's Diner.

"I'll be a waitress," she explained, and Alison had to hold in her opinion. Nina could be especially graceful in rare moments, but the girl was exceptionally clumsy, especially when she was trying _not_ to be. Still, her enthusiasm and ability to talk to people and make them smile was a gift that Alison admired. She'd do just fine.

"That'll be fun for you. And Ruby will enjoy the company."

"That's what I thought too! So after I got the job, Granny told me that The Daily Mirror was looking for delivery people. I stopped there on the way back to Mary-Margaret's and they hardly gave me an interview."

"Really?"

"Yeah. They just asked if I knew how to ride a bike and said I'd be delivering to the neighborhood right around the corner from here three days a week. And they're providing me a bike, so guess who just scored us a mode of transportation!"

They laughed and it didn't go unnoticed by Alison just how quickly things were turning around. With Nina's pay from the delivery service and whatever tips she earned from the diner, plus the payments Alison received from her paintings, they could more than afford the tiny apartment and utility bills that came with it. They'd have so much left over money by the end of the month they could spend it all on groceries and eat like royalty.

Suddenly she stood, clattering her spoon against an empty bowl and bringing concern to her friend across the table.

"Ali?" Nina asked as the tall blonde retreated to the darkness of the bedroom. She looked harder, trying to see what she was doing, but it didn't take long to figure out because she returned almost as soon as she left, carrying a canvas in her hands.

"Nina, I want you to have this," she said, turning the canvas around to show what she had painted. "You'll be able to see it better tomorrow when the sun comes up, but I really wanted to give it to you now."

Teal eyes were wide as she took in the brushstrokes from the candlelight. A tulip stood prominently in the center of the canvas, flanked on both sides by vertical lines of intricate swirls and floral designs. The portrait was simple but beautifully detailed with Alison's touch, and though the colors couldn't be seen in the candle's red flame, Nina knew that they were bright and full of life.

"Alison… this is beautiful," she breathed, gripping the sides of the canvas. "Are you sure that you don't want to sell this one? I-I mean, I really love it, but…"

But even though Nina had gotten two jobs, it didn't automatically solve their money problems. Alison was well aware of that, but she wanted to give this portrait to Nina ever since the idea of it popped into her mind. The last painting she wanted to keep and decided to put to market was now ruined; she wasn't about to let this one share the same fate.

"It's yours, guilt free. You deserve it, Nina."

"Thank you… thank you so much!"

Nina set the painting down and threw herself at Alison, embracing her in another hug.

It had taken some time, several weeks and some odd days since the clock tower moved, but things were finally changing. For real this time.

After they ate they changed into their pajamas… or, well, Alison changed into her pajamas and Nina bundled up to bear through the frigid night. After a hussy argument over who should have how many blankets and how many candles they should have burning in the living room, Nina finally settled down on her mattress covered in both of their blankets and Alison begrudgingly put on a hoodie. She was about to lay down when she caught Nina's glare. Sighing, she pulled up the zipper of the sweater and only laid down when she saw the other girl smile in content.

Usually they'd be able to fall asleep right away, but restless thoughts kept them awake. It took long minutes of silence before Nina impatiently broke it, unable to drift off with her excitement and nerves. "Hey Ali?"

"Yeah?"

"About yesterday…" she started, unsure of how to proceed as she turned to her friends' mattress. She played with a corner of her green blanket beneath Alison's blue one, trying to find the words she wanted to say, but as usual, just wasn't able to find the proper way to say them. "What were you going to do if you ran away?"

Alison stared at the ceiling, breathing calmly while thinking back to her previous actions.

Closing her eyes, she felt it all again. The feeling of defeat, of not being good enough, of how she got nothing in return for all her efforts put forth into project after project. She was miserable, hungry, and so, so tired, not just from the lack of sleep, but she was simply tired of everything; the small apartment, Mr. Gold's scamming business… _everything_.

Everything except the one person who kept her from running away.

"I don't know what I would've done," she answered truthfully. "I got so worked up and frustrated… I couldn't think and I felt like I was out of control; that _everything_ was out of control." She opened her eyes and turned over to Nina with a sad look on her face. "I'm sorry you had to see that."

"No, no, it's okay. I get it." Nina's smile was warm, filled with relief and gratitude. She reached the distance between their mattresses and rested her hand on the carpet, clutching the fibers with stiff fingers. "I'm glad that you didn't leave."

A pale hand stretched out and clasped her own, chilling her skin at the touch in just that familiar way.

"Me too."


	9. 22

December had been a long and trying month, but somehow the girls managed to get through it. Nights that had once been spent crying silently in the cold dark were gradually turning into slumber parties where they would spend half the night giggling about the silliest things. They'd make shadow puppets in the candlelight. Nina would tell stories. Alison would draw pictures for her. It was becoming somewhat normal that they lived on a tight budget and without electricity, and as miserable as it could be at times, they began to make the best of it.

Of course there would be slip-ups. Nina would come home from work, completely drained from a long day, only to find Alison holding herself in a corner, wondering why she hadn't gotten any phone calls from Mr. Gold about sold paintings. She hadn't completely broken down again, but she came close, and it was all Nina could do to try and talk her out of her self-deprecating thoughts. When she wasn't in a bout of anxiety, Alison remained calm and level-headed, a strong pillar for Nina to lean on when she felt completely exhausted.

Christmas went by like it was nothing and almost went unnoticed by either of them if it wasn't for Nina opening the door to a group of carolers outside of their apartment. Their neighbor above them stomped down the steps and chased them away, muttering a "bah humbug" as he trekked back to his home, leaving the two friends in a fit of giggles. They didn't exchange presents; they promised each other not to, anyway, in order to preserve what little money they had.

New Year's happened in much the same way, only no carolers, but the same neighbor yelled at them to tone down their rendition of "Auld Lang Syne." Nina responded by showering the outside of his door with confetti she got from a New Year's party at Granny's Diner.

But now a week after the turn of the year, things had calmed down around town. The holidays were over, people had nothing to look forward to but work and a winter festival in early February, and the festive cheer disappeared as though it had been washed away by some invisible wave.

On one particular day in early January, however, two residents of Storybrooke found reasons to continue the festive spirit.

"Nothing good ever happens today…" the blonde mumbled, glaring at the calendar.

…It would just take Alison a while to find a reason to celebrate.

She sat on a folding chair in the kitchen, knees drawn to her chest as she grumpily chewed a raw toaster pastry. Her eyes bored into the calendar, glaring at the number nine circled in red as if it stole all her chocolate and left her the empty box to find.

A thin finger tapped the table impatiently as she ate and her brows drew together, one of them twitching slightly in a show of irritation. Blue eyes danced from the clock, to the silent phone, and to the dark ceiling light before she refocused on the calendar just to start the dance all over again.

Finally, she finished eating and just gave up, nearly slamming her head on the table in defeat.

"Something's got to give…" she groaned into the cheap metal.

She wouldn't admit it out loud, but the impossible had happened: Alison was bored.

Right after New Year's, she ran out of canvases to use for her paintings. Nina offered to buy her more, but Alison insisted they save the money to pay for the apartment and their other basic needs. Her sketchpad was getting full and she wanted to spare the last pages for whatever visions she could dump into it, rather than sketching recklessly like she had been doing all December.

Nina was working at the diner all day and wouldn't be home until later that evening, and while usually Alison could stay occupied on any given day with her artwork, she missed her little bubbly friend. She missed how she would come home and marvel over her paintings before retreating to the bedroom or the fire escape. She missed the fun atmosphere she brought with her wherever she went. Lately, whenever Nina came home she'd bundle up and go straight to sleep, sometimes even skipping dinner if it meant she'd get a few extra minutes of rest before her paper run in the morning.

Alison could have gone outside to wander around town, maybe even visit Nina at work for a little bit… but that required possibly having to socialize with people she didn't really like and, well, as much as she tried to act calm and poise in front of strangers, sometimes her anxiety got the best of her and she'd end up being honestly blunt and just a little insulting.

_Bad idea. Bad, bad idea. Not today. Any day but today._

She picked her head up, looked at the little desk calendar on the table and smacked it down with a flick of her wrist. Turning her head, she stared lazily through the kitchen to the open door of the bedroom where her art supplies sat in waiting, eagerly anticipating her return just as much as she was. Her eyes caught sight of something subtle outside the window, but it was enough to bring a smile to her downtrodden face.

It was snowing again. White flakes drifted lazily in the breeze, each individual crystal floating and turning freely without a care or worry, spiraling to the ground at whatever mundane speed they managed.

She lost herself in the flakes, visualizing in her mind what they might look like under a microscope before they melted into droplets of water. She closed her eyes, picturing a bright blue crystalline structure in her mind's canvas. The core of it was curved and flowed with grace, but the six points of ice that jutted out from the center were beautiful, powerful, strikingly dangerous even, and perhaps…

Her train of thought was completely thrown off track by the shrill ring of the telephone. She jumped and knocked over her chair, startled from the noise and hastily scrambled across the kitchen as her heart tried to play catch up with her nerves.

She yanked the receiver off the wall and held it to her ear, trying to take a steady breath but failing as her voice came out just as shaky as she felt. "H-Hello?"

"Alison Vinter?"

"Speaking," she said, this time a little calmer. She recognized the voice on the phone and would have rolled her eyes if she hadn't been waiting for this phone call for the last month.

"It's Mr. Gold." Of course it was. "I am pleased to tell you that I've sold your holiday stock and I have your payment ready and waiting at my shop for you to pick up."

She was speechless. Her holiday stock was basically every painting she had dropped off since the blackout started through last week when she ran out of canvases. She had spent the last month believing that her paintings weren't good enough for the market anymore, and here was the dapper man with a golden hilted cane calling her up and telling her that every last one of them sold.

If she were capable of fainting, she would have likely swooned just then.

Her apparent silence on the phone forced the caller to clear his throat. "Or just send Ms. Hummel to pick up the payment if you prefer."

"Uh, no… no, sorry, I didn't mean to…" she stopped herself, mentally kicking herself for nearly stumbling into an awkward ramble that was becoming signature to Nina. She breathed in calmly and answered him more diligently this time. "I'll stop by the store within the hour to pick up the payment myself," she said, thankful that she had managed to put together a coherent sentence against her racing heart.

"Very well. I'll be expecting your arrival, then."

He hung up first, typical of him, and Alison returned the receiver to its place on the wall.

She didn't know how to feel. Relief washed over her from the news that her paintings sold… they _sold_. She was getting paid today, and that was great. That was fantastic, actually.

But that didn't change the fact that she had to deal with Mr. Gold and his conniving tricks and clauses. She hadn't seen or talked with him in over a month; Nina had taken all of her paintings to him in that time, all but two that she would bring with her to put out to market today. Nerves fluttered in her stomach as she got ready to leave the apartment, but she reminded herself all the while that she had dealt with him before and beaten him at his own game once.

"God, I hate today," she mumbled as she locked the door behind her with paintings in hand. Clearly, she was not looking forward to the business trip.

When she stepped outside the building she felt rejuvenated, having been stuck inside for the past several weeks painting like a madwoman. The fresh, cold air played at her senses but she refused to let it bother her. As she held her wrapped paintings under her right arm, she held up her left hand, catching snowflakes on the tips of her fingers as she made her way down the main street of town to the shop she loathed. The flakes lingered long on her skin before they eventually melted away to nothing. Nina always told her that her skin was cold, but apparently it wasn't cold enough to keep a snowflake intact.

She stepped into the store with her head down, wanting to avoid Mr. Gold's gaze right away as she stomped the snow off her boots at the entrance mat. "Good day, Ms. Vinter," the shop owner greeted as she walked towards his counter. "I didn't expect you to drop off another set of paintings until after the winter festival."

"Yeah, well, I need a little bit extra to sell right now," she admitted, placing the wrapped canvases on the counter. She looked up at him and glared, calm blue eyes quickly deepening to a rich cobalt. "Considering I haven't had a payment in over a month, I believe I'm a bit overdue for a modest cut on these ones. I want a 40% share on these two."

Mr. Gold smiled richly and handed over a white envelope, turning it over to her with a flick of the wrist. "Nice try, Dearie, but you'll have to make a serious offer to get what you want."

She snatched the envelope from his hand and clenched her teeth. She simply was not in the mood for this today. "I wasn't joking. And you're kidding me with this," she said, motioning to the envelope she just took. "Why did you hold on to this all month long? I thought we agreed that you'd call me as soon as something sold!"

"We agreed that I'd call you as soon as I received payment for the paintings," Mr. Gold harshly reminded. "What with the holidays, people shop last minute and you know this store is closed between Christmas and New Year's."

Alison frowned deeply, heat rising to her cheeks. He was making an excuse and a poor one at that. "Look, I appreciate you selling my paintings for me, and yes, you deserve a profit split, but I can't keep painting on such a low income! If I keep painting at 30% then I'm going to run out of supplies and neither one of us is going to benefit from this."

Her points were valid; she knew they were, and it was the truth. But it seemed no matter what tactics she tried lately against Mr. Gold, it always ended with the pawn broker coming out on top. He seemed irritated as he stood behind the counter, gripping his cane with white knuckles.

"Ms. Vinter, need I remind you of what happens when you cross me?"

She blinked. Was he threatening her? He's never done that before, or at least not in such a direct way. "Mr. Gold," she started, losing the grip on her anger with a trembling voice, "I'm sorry, I don't…"

The man with the cane raised a brow in amusement, smiling all the while when he noticed that Alison was completely oblivious to the current situation. "Oh… she didn't tell you, did she?"

_Is he talking about Nina? What would Nina have to do with this?_

She shook her head slowly, fear creeping into her heart as it began to pound within her chest. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Mr. Gold said nothing. He just stepped to the side to reveal the painting he had on the primary display in his shop.

Alison took it in with sad, wide eyes and her mouth dropped into a deep frown. She hadn't noticed it when she first walked in; she'd just assumed that the painting on the primary display was the tundra piece she painted months ago.

But here it was, a ghost from her past risen from the grave to haunt her. A fjord, so graceful and beautiful in the midst of winter, and a small kingdom nestled against its waters, completely undisturbed.

"It would be a shame to see it ruined twice," Mr. Gold mused, looking at it with his hands firmly balanced on the hilt of his cane. "Don't you agree?"

It _was_ a threat. Play the game or the painting would be ruined. She didn't need it to be explained to her; she understood the implications from his tone of voice alone.

But she remembered everything Nina had told her that cold day one month ago, the day she came home with only fifty-eight dollars in her pocket. She told her of the mistake she made, and Alison vowed never to make it again, not if she could help it.

For now, she refused to let her emotions get the best of her and let her rational mind take over. "I'm not going to argue anymore," she said evenly, striking out any fear or anger that could have slipped into her voice. "I just want to make this work out for the both of us.

Mr. Gold's shoulders seemed to relax a little, though his jaw was still locked as he held the upper hand and glared down at Alison. "I'm listening."

"I'll take the thirty percent on these paintings," she said, motioning to the canvases she brought in that day. "But I'll only release these to you if our new contract states that any damage done to these paintings is the responsibility of the owner, not the provider."

She knew he had taken the money from her previous profits to repair the fjord painting just to torture her with it. As of now, she didn't have a plan to free it from his grasp other than to buy it from him, and even if she did that, she knew he'd raise the price just to watch her fidget.

She'd play his game for now, and it seemed as though he was enjoying it. He seriously considered her proposal before nodding and holding out his hand. "We're at an agreement, then?"

Earnestly, she took his hand and shook it, relieved that he wouldn't be able to take any more of her hard-earned money from destroying her paintings whenever he felt like it. From the weight of the cash inside the envelope he gave her, she was honestly surprised that he didn't follow through on such an idea.

He smiled, glanced back at the painting on the wall, and then motioned to the hallway to the back room of his shop. "I'll prepare the paperwork, then, if you'll just wait here."

She watched him limp to the hallway and disappear around the corner, and when she could no longer hear the thump of his cane against the floor, she sighed.

God did she _hate_ coming here. She liked money, oh yes, but did she ever hate having to deal with that man. It used to be a fun challenge to work with him and point out his scams, but now it was turning into ruthless deal-making and she was being threatened to agree to terms that she didn't feel confident in. She was trapped.

With the hard part of the visit taken care of, she allowed herself to wander the store for a bit, never having done so seriously before. Any time she came here, it was strictly for business, never to browse the wares for her own enjoyment. Mostly, she just wanted to get her mind off of the fjord painting on the primary display.

One small section of the shop was dedicated solely to jewelry. Some was displayed in a locked case, while other pieces were left out on display, too big to effectively be stolen by a petty thief. One such piece caught Alison's eye and no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't turn away from it. She seemed to almost be attracted to it.

It was a golden piece of metal, cut precisely into a hollow triangle at either end with a bigger flower shape in the middle. The flower was hollow as well, but only so to fit a shining blue jewel in its center. The bottom of the designed piece was curved ever so slightly to suggest that it could be worn as a tiara. Either that, or it was just an extremely elegant wall decoration.

She picked it up with delicate fingers, feeling unworthy of the craftsmanship but drawn to it regardless. The jewel glinted in the light of the store and the metal was so shiny she could clearly see her reflection in it.

"I do believe that is a little out of your price range, Dearie."

Startled, Alison fumbled the piece and caught it in shaking hands before setting it back down on the display case. _Wow, nice going there. Nearly dropped the damn thing and owed him money again._

She returned to the main counter and noticed Mr. Gold had returned with a familiar stack of documents. "Now, if you'll just give these a once over and sign in the usual spots, our deal will be final and you'll be free to go."

If she trusted him she'd give the documents a simple once over, but she didn't and dissected each page, line for line, word for word until she was satisfied. For once, he opted not to use any complicated language and kept the document simple, stating the terms that they shook on in plain and simple English. She smirked when she made out her signature and handed the stack back to him.

"As always, it was a pleasure doing business with you, Ms. Vinter. I'll call as soon as I have a payment ready for you. Enjoy the rest of your day."

She rolled her eyes as she left the store. If their hostile deal-making was any indication of how the rest of her day would go, she wasn't looking forward to it.

* * *

As soon as Alison got home from her unpleasant visit, she plopped back into her seat at the kitchen table, lit a candle and counted out the money she received. Normally she would have counted it out at the shop, but she was just so thankful that she had money she decided not to push her luck by dissecting the payment in front of the man who gave it to her.

She separated the bills into three even stacks. _Next month's water bill, next month's electric, and food._ Her eyes went wide as she looked at the size of the last pile. _Wow. _Lots_ of food. We could make stew every week for the next month and buy chocolate on top of that. How many paintings did I sell again?_

She'd honestly lost count. The only thing that mattered is that now that Nina was working, they were well taken care of and on an upswing. So long as her paintings continued to sell, the money issue wouldn't bother them again for a while.

Sighing, she rested her head on the table and smiled, glancing up at the blank ceiling light before turning her sights on the clock.

Before she could even think of her roommate, she heard the familiar tapping of feet rushing up the staircase and a key turning in the door handle.

"I'm hooooome!" Nina declared loudly as the door swung open. Alison turned around and grinned, happy that the little bundle of excitement was back to cure her boredom of this wretched day.

Nina all but bounced over to her, placing a bag she was carrying on the table before hugging her friend around the shoulders. "How was your day?" she asked, before noticing the stacks of money laying on the table. "Oh wow, okay, never mind. It was pretty good, huh?"

"I guess you could say that…" Alison lied, secretly thinking about her misdealing at the pawn shop and her general frustration with the day all together. "The trip to Mr. Gold's could have gone better, but-"

"You went to Mr. Gold's?"

"Well, yeah. How did you think I got the money?"

Just like that, the excitement Nina carried in with her vanished and she let go of the blonde's shoulders. "Alison, I told you I'd drop off the paintings and pick up the payments whenever he called. You didn't have to-"

"Stop." Alison calmly stood and faced her shorter friend, looking her evenly in the eye. "I know what you were trying to do, and I'm really thankful for it, but you can't protect me from that painting forever. I was going to find out about it eventually."

"I know… but you were just so sad last month and I didn't want you to feel worse. I know how you feel about that painting and I didn't want you to get hurt again."

Alison smirked and nodded her head over to the money laying on the table besides her. "I don't think I can be hurt for a little while. Between this, the money you're making and whatever I can get from the winter festival, we're not going to have many problems for a long time."

There was no stopping the wide smile from spreading across Nina's face, especially now that she knew her employment was making their lives a lot easier, even if she didn't really enjoy it. It was such a relief to know that the stress was finally being lifted and, realistically, this would be the last blackout they had to suffer through so long as they lived here.

Nina knew there was reason to celebrate today. She reached for the bag she brought in with her and pulled out a white box from it. "Here, I got you something."

"Nina, you didn't have to—"

"Oh, come on! Of course I did! I know how much you hate today, but I saw this and I couldn't help myself!" She opened the box, took out what was inside and set it on the table, moving the stacks of money so they wouldn't get in the way. As Alison stood there, face turning red in her usual flustered way, Nina took a small candle from one of the cabinets, stuck it in the middle of a mountain of bright blue frosting and lit it with the lighter.

"Happy Birthday, Alison!"

The older girl stood in front of the glow rigidly with one hand clasped in the other, and though she tried to stop it, an infectious smirk raised from the corner of her lips as she gazed upon the large chocolate cupcake decorated with a greater amount of frosting. She giggled, eyeing her friend. "Thank you Nina."

The redhead beamed, triumphant in "Operation: Don't Forget Your Best Friend's Birthday." She had it circled on the calendar to make sure they didn't forget, as Alison was prone to do because of her apparent disdain for the day. "So how old is the birthday girl?"

There came a silence where the air stood still and time seemed to stop. Every year, Nina had asked the same question, and the same silence occurred. Alison had to stop and think.

Each year for the past twenty-eight years, she had turned 21 years old. Like the other residents in Storybrooke, she didn't age. She was perpetually stuck at the legal drinking age and Nina was forever an 18 year old young adult. Time had stood still and each year in that long period repeated itself.

But this year was different. This year, the clock above the library moved.

Blue eyes enveloped the warm glow of the candle as she leaned closer to it. "22," she said simply.

Somewhere deep in her heart, she sensed the irony of her words, of how she only managed to grow a year older after living through twenty-eight years of poverty in this tiny apartment.

But with today's events, she was ready to move on. Things were changing, and despite being as timid as she usually was, she was ready to meet the change head on. Drawing in a breath, she made to blow out the candle before Nina clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Wait! You gotta make a wish first!"

Alison took hold of the redhead's wrist and moved it away with a little annoyance. She stared at the candle again, then closed her eyes for a few moments, thinking of something she wanted for a long time.

When she blew out the candle, Nina nearly pounced on her. "What did you wish for?"

"It's a secret!" Alison said, giggling when she saw Nina's pout.

"Oh come on! You know it's not fair to keep secrets from your best friend!"

"You really want to know?"

"Yes!"

The only answer Nina got was a dab of blue frosting on the freckles of her nose. "I'm still not telling."

Alison didn't realize at the time that the little bit of frosting was a bomb to start the war. She was going to tease the younger girl further, maybe make her guess at what her wish was, when she got a score of blue smeared across her cheek. She blinked, clearly not expecting the move… then again, it was Nina. She should know by now to expect the unexpected that came with living with her.

There were no more words, just handfuls of frosting flinging across the kitchen and a rowdy fit of giggles erupting from the small apartment. The war ended with both of them on the floor, Nina having captured the birthday girl in a headlock and shoving frosted fingers back through the blonde's fringe. Alison was stuck, laughing so hard that her sides hurt and she just didn't care.

She hit the floor with an open palm, signaling her defeat. "Okay, okay! You win!" Just like that, she was freed from the headlock and rolled away, desperately trying to catch her breath from laughing so hard. She took in the sights of the kitchen as she calmed herself, becoming amused by the confectionary explosions of blue from what the candlelight allowed her to see.

"Sorry about your birthday present," Nina laughed sheepishly as she took in the number they did on the kitchen, then laughing harder when she gave Alison another look. Alison didn't see it as she busied herself by licking the frosting off of her fingers.

"The cake is my favorite part, anyway."

"Pfft… you look like a Smurf."

"Oh, like you should talk! Want some frosting in your ear?"

"No!" Nina rolled away from the threat, unknowingly dropping onto another glob of frosting on the floor and coating her work uniform even more. "I gotta admit though, I made your hair look cooler. Your bangs look good pushed back like that."

Alison reached up to touch her fringe, feeling the strands frozen in place in that swooped back, spiked look she always wanted to achieve. Where the average hair-care product had failed, blue sugar had succeeded. The irony of it didn't escape her. "Nina, I think you just permanently dyed my hair blue."

"Nah, it's just sugar! It'll wash out. Eventually." She sat up and smiled when the blonde… well, the blue-haired, blue-eyed girl shot her a disapproving glare. She just ignored it and went back to the question that started the frosting war in the first place. "Seriously though, what did you wish for?"

It took a little before the girl in question would respond. She bit her thumb, licking off the frosting before she declared her answer.

"I wished that someday we'll move out of here and live in a bigger apartment, where we don't have to sleep on the floor and the heat keeps us warm all winter long."

Nina stared at her wide-eyed. "That's a really nice wish."

"Well, actually…" Alison started, unsure of how to proceed. She brought her braid over her shoulder and absentmindedly ran her fingers through the end, forgetting that she still had frosting on them. "Depending on how well the winter festival goes, we could make that wish come true."

"Really?!"

Alison nodded, a sincere smile on her face. It made all kinds of dreams pop up inside Nina's head. She imagined an extravagant living area with a balcony, not a fire escape, to walk out onto at night. She imagined a long hallway with polished wooden floors that she could slide on to get from her room to Alison's separate bedroom. She pictured a kitchen large enough to host a party and a hot tub in the living room.

Sure, not all of her fantasies were realistic, but a girl was allowed to dream. "I know the first thing I'm getting when we move in."

"What's that?"

"A toaster."

The Smurf blinked in the candlelit room and just shook her head. "Of all the… I'm afraid to ask. Why a toaster?"

"Because of those little pastry things that you keep buying, you know, the ones that come in the silver packets? Those would taste _so_ much better if you put them in the toaster."

"They taste fine to me."

"Ali, they taste like…" A sudden flash of brightness cut Nina off and she squinted against the sudden light.

Alison snapped her head up and looked to the ceiling light. The bulb was aglow with electricity.

"The power's back on!" Nina exclaimed, jumping up from her spot on the floor. She ran into the bedroom and flipped the light switch on, then came back into the kitchen to make sure the fridge was working. She quickly moved from room to room, checking that all the electrical basics were back up and running. Finally, she stopped in front of the air vent to feel the warm breeze creeping in after a long month of absence.

_Freaking finally,_ Alison thought, silently ecstatic that their small home was back on the grid. She had been waiting impatiently all day for this, having paid the electric bill for January as soon as Nina came up with the cash for it. For the first time that day, Alison was happily content with everything. She got paid today, the power was back on, and her best friend was here to ensure that a smile stayed on her face.

"Hey Ali?"

"Yeah?"

Nina looked down at her blue frosted shoes. She rocked back and forth on her feet, perhaps a little nervously. "You know, we haven't really gone outside this winter. I know it's your favorite season and everything, so…" Her teal eyes looked back up, a smile reflected in them as clear as the one shying on her face.

"Alison, do you wanna build a snowman?"

Something resonated within them at the question. Something familiar, important even, but they couldn't remember what it was. The words made Nina feel nervous and Alison almost felt like she could cry.

She didn't, but instead said words that felt like they had been on the tip of her tongue for years.

"Of course I do."

After the strangely nostalgic moment passed, Nina whizzed past her in a blur, taking hold of her wrist and dragging her to the closet. "Your boots, my jacket, let's go," she said, crossing off her mental checklist as she threw the items out and put on the one belonging to her. Alison barely had her boots laced up before Nina was dragging her out the door again.

"Come oooon! Come on, come on, come on!"

"W-Wait! We're still covered in frosting…"

Nina glanced back at her as she pulled her down the stairs. "You make a good Smurfette."

Alison rolled her eyes as they exited the building. They ran to their favorite park, just down the block from where they lived, and only halfway there did they run past somebody. An older, round looking gentleman couldn't see the blue frosting in the dark of night, but fatherly scolded Alison for not having a jacket on as they ran past him. In a fit of child-like rebellion and glee, she turned around and cupped her hands around her mouth to project her voice as she backpedaled with Nina watching her in admiration.

"I don't need one because the cold never bothered me anyway!"

They were in another fit of giggles by the time they made it to the park. No one in their right mind would be there that late, especially since it was snowing all day. All the benches and playground equipment was coated in white powder; there was nothing here for the average park goer to do.

But for Nina Hummel and Alison Vinter, there was _always_ something to do when it snowed.

Alison rolled the base of the snowman while Nina pelted her with snowballs, more in an attempt to playfully annoy her than to wash the blue out of her hair, as she claimed she was doing. She'd helped Alison make the center of the body and worked on the head while the blue-blonde found rocks to use as buttons and eyes.

"Nina, what the heck is that?"

"It's his head, duh!"

"…Can't you just roll out a snowball like a regular person?"

"It's fine!"

"It's an oval…"

"It's cute!"

"I swear the snowballs you threw at me were ovals, too."

Alison got smacked in the face with another clump of snow. "So was that one."

"Okay, miss fancy-pants artist. Let's see you make something out of it."

Not one to ignore a challenge, Alison set to work, sculpting out a face in the lumpy snow while Nina gave the figure stick arms. Once they were finished, they sat back and gazed upon their work.

He was a little short for a snowman, but the eternal grin on his face was infectious. Nina bumped Alison in the elbow as they looked at him.

"Told you he was cute."

"Yeah, he's got a certain charm to him. He looks like he could be your kid!"

"No way! See that smirk he has? He's definitely yours."

"Nina!"

Thus ensued a snowball fight to end all snowball fights. Alison chased her younger friend, finding her hidden behind trees or benches in an attempt to escape her icy wrath, but the redhead was entirely unsuccessful. They both finally fell, exhausted, making blue-faced snow angels while they tried to catch their breath.

It was the first time in a long time that they both felt completely happy, and despite the rocky start to the day, Alison finally found a reason to celebrate today. She had her best friend at her side, here to make her laugh when things got bad and give her courage when she felt she couldn't be brave.

She smirked as she lay in the snow, watching quietly as more flakes drifted down to rest on her frigid skin.

"Best. Birthday. Ever."

* * *

**AN: Just a reminder that this story won't be updated again until next Friday (Apr. 11th) because of some things in the real world that I need to take care of, but things should return to a normal weekly schedule after that.**

**Are you guys ready to see more Frozen characters in here...? ;)**


	10. You and Me

"Alisoooon…"

"Stop complaining! We're almost there!"

"But I'm so tired…"

"Not my fault you didn't go to sleep until three hours before your paper run."

"And these are heavy… why did you have to frame them _before_ we got there?"

Alison just sighed. If she weren't carrying a stack of paintings in her arms, she'd rub her forehead from the migraine Nina was giving her this morning. She kicked open a door before her and kept it open with her foot so her friend could follow her inside. "Nina, really, if you didn't want to help then you shouldn't have volunteered."

She got a grumpy and sleepy eyed pout in return. "Yeah, but I didn't know I'd have to work this morning _and _this afternoon."

"You're impossible sometimes. You know how important today is."

Nina stayed silent as she followed the blonde with her own stack of paintings. Today was a day they looked forward to each and every year: the Winter Festival. Held in the gymnasium of the local elementary school, it was more of a social gathering for the town of Storybrooke and an opportunity for businesses to show off their wares and product. Markets and restaurants would offer samples of their food, clubs and local entertainment would pass out flyers and give demonstrations. The festival was a sampling of all Storybrooke had to offer, conveniently located in one space protected from the cold.

As Alison liked to call it, it was the "Help a Poor, Starving Artist" festival. Every year she spent the entire month of January just preparing for it, and this year was no different. With her recent payment from Mr. Gold, she spent some of the money on canvases and paints to mass produce a series of quality paintings to show off her talent at the festival. She'd sell them if anyone was interested in buying them, and since she wasn't selling through Mr. Gold's shop, she was free to keep all the money from the sales. It was also the time of the year when she got the most commissions for original pieces.

In the past, the money she made from the commissions acted as their emergency bank; they only pulled cash out from it whenever they couldn't afford a certain bill or were running low on food and didn't have the money to go to the grocery store. This year was different.

With Nina's steady income and Alison's sales through Mr. Gold, they were gradually on their way to becoming financially stable. The commission money this year wouldn't have to act as their backup. Instead, they planned to save it away and eventually use it to move into a bigger apartment. With extra savings from each week they worked, they'd be able to move out of their current place by spring.

That was the goal, and that was what made today so important.

"Those pastry things are going to taste so good from the toaster," Nina smiled as she deposited her load of artwork on a table. Alison giggled as she began to unwrap the paintings and set them up on easels the school provided for her.

"You're not going to let that dream go, are you?"

"Nope! Now that we're making more money, that dream is totally achievable!"

Alison smirked. A little more than a month ago, any sort of dream she had just seemed like that: a dream. But now things were turning around in their favor. They weren't starving, Nina wasn't freezing in the winter air and she didn't have to stress about running out of art supplies to continue her craft.

With Nina's aid, she neatly set up her table, displaying her paintings on the easels around it and placing framed sketches, as well as laminated photos of her older paintings, on the table for people to browse. Behind the table, she prepared an easel and a blank canvas in front of a stool and the tiered table she brought from home.

Nina raised a brow when her friend started preparing the small table in a familiar way. "You're painting today?" she asked.

Alison's confident grin all but told her everything she needed to know. "I like to paint during the festival to show people that I'm the original artist," she explained as she finished preparing her supplies. "I want them to see what I can do."

"So what are you gonna do when you finish it?" Nina asked, taking a look at what booths were being set up next to Alison's, then turning around, not quite overwhelmed but enjoying the flurry of activity growing in the gymnasium. Alison noticed her distraction but answered her anyway.

"I don't know yet. I might sell it, or if someone really nice comes along I might just give it away."

"That's… nice…"

"Nina?" Alison tried to grab her attention, but the action was in vain. Nina was completely astounded by the place. All the booths, the music coming from speakers on the other side of the room, wonderful smells swirling through the air, and the people, oh, the _people_… Nina suddenly felt as though she had been sheltered from the town her entire life. This wasn't her first festival, but Alison swore that she had the same reaction to it each year. "Nina? Hello?"

"Whoa…"

"Neeners?" Even calling the redhead by her hated nickname wasn't grabbing her attention. Alison huffed, sat down on her stool with her arms crossed and cleared her throat. "I heard there's free ice cream at the parlor today-"

"What?!" Nina whirled, nearly knocking into the table in her excitement at the notion of free anything. Her bright eyes only met a knowing smirk and her faced dropped. "I spaced out again, didn't I?"

"Big time."

"Sorry… I just get so excited about this stuff! I mean, look!" She held her arms out and spun, marveling at everything around her. "Who knew there were so many shops and businesses in town? And all these people… gosh, Ali, I don't even recognize half of them. Why does everyone say Storybrooke is a small town when there's so many people here?"

Alison shrugged, picking up a tube of paint to start preparing a usual palette of blues. "Well, when you compare Storybrooke's citizen to square kilometer ratio with the same of an average American town, you'll find that…" she stopped herself, knowing she was about to get into some long winded explanation that Nina wouldn't have the attention span for, especially considering the current environment. She swirled on the stool, quickly finding that Nina had managed to get distracted again in just that short amount of time. "You know, just because I'm here, that doesn't mean you have to stay here with me the entire time. Why don't you take a look around before you go to work?"

"But don't you need help with anything?" Nina asked, panicked that she wasn't doing enough already. "I could get people to come over here, or talk up your paintings- not that they need to be talked up or anything, but maybe I could…"

"It's okay! Really," the blonde waved a hand, trying to dismiss Nina's infatuation with everything around her as no big deal. "The festival only happens once year. Go have some fun; I'll be fine right here."

"Well, if you say so…" Nina turned, secretly giddy about getting to wander the festival. She looked back, finding her friend busying herself with her paints and she smiled. Alison was in her environment; it was time for Nina to enjoy hers.

The booth to the right of Alison's was still being set up, but from what Nina could tell, it looked like some kind of food place. It was still early in the morning, so not all the vendors were completely ready, but from the size of the growing crowd the festival was already in full swing. Even with the cold winter howling outside, the gymnasium contained a carnival-like atmosphere. Somebody was making balloon animals for the kids and Nina had to resist the urge of cotton candy, otherwise Granny would have to scold her about being too hyperactive with the customers at the diner again.

There was an even mix of businesses and retailers between the art vendors and food booths. Archie Hopper had a table quietly on the side of the room to promote his therapy practice. Across from him was Billy, a mechanic, passing out flyers and coupons for the auto-repair shop. Numerous other people had tables and booths set up to promote their businesses, but Nina couldn't name everyone. A few familiar faces she recognized from working at the diner, but it thrilled her all the same to see what new places were opening up in town and what other ones she had yet to discover.

She found herself in the back corner of the gym when she stopped her browsing to stare at an elaborate, blown-up photograph of a horse galloping through a bright, grassy meadow. The beast was a majestic creature of beauty and power with a tan hide and a trimmed black and white mane.

"His name is Sitron."

Nina jumped, startled out of a growing attraction for the horse she never met and looked over to find a man tending a table next to the photograph. "Oh, um… h-hi…" she stuttered, if not from her embarrassment at jumping at the sound of his voice, then from the sudden heat flushing her face and making her heart pound as though she was running a marathon.

This man was _gorgeous_.

He was tall, fair, well-built and good-looking without standing out too much from the average male resident of Storybrooke. His auburn hair was neatly placed and hazel eyes smiled back at her, showing kindness in the face of her frazzled nerves. "Do you like horses?" he asked sincerely, trying to keep the conversation going.

"Oh I _love_ horses!" she said, not exactly lying but feigning a stronger enthusiasm because, dear God, this man was beautiful. "They're just so… so energetic and strong and fast and pretty and you know, I've always thought they looked so free, running in the wild with no reigns and… I'm sorry, I'm rambling." She looked up to find the man politely chuckling and she smiled back, feeling relaxed that her awkwardness wasn't getting in the way of the impression she was trying to make.

"No, no, it's fine" his eyes crinkled as he laughed lightly. He held out a hand towards her. "I didn't even introduce myself. My name is Anderson Stromme."

"Nina Hummel," she said, taking his hand and shaking it, finding his grip firm but softening immediately, almost as though he was afraid to hurt her. She looked at the photograph again, curious. "So you work at the ranch?" she asked.

"Yes I do! Been working there since I was in high school."

"Really?"

"It's become my life!" he shrugged. "There's a few of us who care for the horses year-round, but when the weather's nice we offer riding lessons. Oh yeah," he said absentmindedly, looking down to a stack of orange flyers he had on the table. He picked one up and handed it to her, offering her to take it. "Riding lessons start in April, but the first lesson's free if you bring this with you."

Nina eagerly took the flyer and looked at it, noticing the mentioned attached coupon at the bottom. "It's great as a hobby, but it'll give you a good workout, too," Anderson added. Nina didn't need the extra persuasion; just the idea of learning how to ride the horses she admired and the chance of working with and getting to know the gentle, handsome stranger before her, she had accepted his offer as soon as he presented it to her.

"I'll be there!" she said, turning to continue on her tour of the festival and waving shyly as more people walked up to Anderson's booth. He smiled and waved back.

"And I'm looking forward to it!"

Clutching the flyer tightly in her hands, Nina gave one last look to the man with the genuine smile, the beautiful and the kind, sincere eyes. Oh, she had fallen quickly, and she fell _hard_.

Her sampling of the second half of the festival was more like an abridged tour of the rest of Storybrooke as she was running out of time before she had to leave for work at the diner, but the entire time she could only think of Anderson and his charm.

_Alison would yell at me if she found out that I already like him, like him,_ she thought to herself. Her roommate was always weary of strangers and kept her distance from anyone new until she was positive she could trust them. By then she'd be able to hold some kind of normal conversation with them that didn't leave her with a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. She always told Nina that she was too trusting too quickly.

_Maybe I'll just hold off on telling her about him for now…_

She made a beeline for her friend's booth, happy to see that the blonde had a sizeable crowd browsing her wares or just standing there and staring, watching as she brought a mountain peak to life through the expression of paint. Nina stepped behind the table and admired her work from up close, glancing over to the crowd for a second before checking up on the artist herself. "Are you sure you're going to be okay?" she asked, ever aware of her roommate's social anxieties.

Alison merely shrugged, still focused on her work. "As long as I have this," she said, nodding at her work in progress, "I'll be fine. It's a little easier to talk to them when they want to know about something you made." She finished a brushstroke and dipped the bristles in a dollop of light blue. "I'm assuming you're leaving?"

"Unfortunately…" Nina sighed, feeling happy that she had the time to enjoy the festival but still wholly unsatisfied that it couldn't last. Her nose caught the scent of something as she went to make her exit and she looked at the booth next to Alison's, noticing that it was finally up and running and selling something absolutely delicious. She patted her friend's shoulder before she walked away. "Don't eat too much!"

"What?" Alison paused at the canvas, staring after her friend in question, but Nina didn't look back and she was left to find the answer on her own. She shook her head, trying to figure out what she was talking about when she found her sense of smell being overrun by something heavenly. Slowly, she turned around and peered over her shoulder, eagerly anticipating but somewhat frightened of what she would find.

She recognized the men operating the booth; they all wore clean white chef jackets and were handing out samples of food to anyone who came up to talk to them. Gentlemen as they were, she never held interest in them; her focus was more on what they were handing out. In particular, her attention was being caught by the warm cascade of silky chocolate flowing in rivers down a three-tiered fountain.

Quickly, she tore her gaze and tried to refocus on her work. _Don't think about it, Ali. You don't need it. It smells ridiculously awesome, but you do not need it. Mountains. Just paint mountains._

With her mental pep-talk, she centered herself and managed to coat her paintbrush before catching another whiff of temptation. Her stomach growled, vocally yielding in opposition of her resilience and she sighed, slumping over in her seat.

_Today is going to be a LONG day…_

* * *

Granny's Diner wasn't very busy that day. Most of Storybrooke was wandering to and from the festival and would only stop in for a coffee or a quick bite of food if they hadn't already had their full share of samples and freebies. There was only a handful of patrons in the place and Nina stood behind the counter with Ruby, rolling silverware in napkins out of sheer boredom.

Ruby hadn't been able to make it to the festival, seeing as Granny was running a booth to advertise both the diner and her bed and breakfast, leaving the family operation in her granddaughter's care. Nina entertained her by relaying everything she experienced at the festival down to the detail, elaborating further on her meeting with the ranchman.

"And his eyes are like… and his voice is so… and his smile, oh my God, his _smile_…"

"Sounds like you got shot by Cupid," Ruby said with a wink. "You know, Valentine's Day is next week. Maybe this year you'll finally have a date!"

One of the patrons sitting at the counter laughed a hearty chuckle, interrupting their conversation. He looked at Nina, amusement dancing in his brown eyes as a silly grin spread across his face. "Yeah right! Who would want to date Hummel?"

"John, you are such an ass!" Nina yelled, throwing a napkin at him. He held his hands up to deflect the harmless wad of paper and motioned to his nearly empty plate of food with open palms.

"Insulting _and_ throwing things at a customer?!" he exclaimed, half-serious and half-joking. "I'm paying your tip, you know!"

Nina huffed and crossed her arms, sticking her tongue out in a mock insult. "Keep it up, Blondie. Next time that coffee won't be free."

John scratched the back of his head, smiling sheepishly before taking a sip of his preferred beverage. He set the mug down, still smiling before his look turned serious. "Really, though, how do you know that you like him so much when you just met him?"

"I just told you guys!" Nina reminded, bringing the man and her co-worker to quietly relive the past five minutes of her babbling about how nice Anderson looked and how gentle he was and what a genuine good feeling she got just from being in his presence. "It's love at first sight!"

"Uh-huh. You probably can't even remember his last name, can you?"

"Sure I do! It's… um…"

Leaning back in his seat, John grinned wider at Nina's frustration and ducked out of the way of a spoon flying in his direction. "And what makes you think he likes you back? How long did you talk to him? Two minutes?"

"John, I swear I'll kick you out—" Nina threatened, but it fell on deaf ears. The object of her irritation stood from his seat, placed a few bills beneath his empty mug and turned for the door, waving half-heartedly with his back to the waitresses.

"Who dates a man they just met?" he asked before walking out. Nina picked up his mug and went to throw it at him before the door shut, but a quick catch of her wrist by Ruby silently told her to quit her pursuit of vengeance.

"Granny will probably take it out of your tips if you break another one…" Ruby said as she guided Nina's arm down to set the mug back on the counter. The copper-headed spitfire pouted as she grudgingly picked up the plates and took them over to a collection bin for washing later.

"That no good, blonde-brained fish-face…" she mumbled under her breath. Ruby rolled her eyes, glancing from the door to Nina before settling on the latter.

"Just how did you two meet?" she asked. "I saw him in town before, but he never came into the diner until after you started working here."

Nina dropped her stack of dishes in the bin with a loud clatter, panicking only for a moment thinking that she might have broken something, but then immediately returned to her less-than-impressed sour mood. She held a finger to her chin, seriously thinking about it before she tried to explain it. "I think it was sometime last month, right before Alison's birthday…"

* * *

It was probably the first day so far in winter where it hadn't snowed. Banks of the white crystals were piled up on the sidewalks and the streets were slick with ice, but nothing stopped Nina. She'd finished her paper run for the morning, got paid for her tireless work that week and had an hour to kill before her shift started at the diner. That gave her time to try and find a "cheer-up" present for Alison.

Her roommate had been stressed the past few days, having received no phone calls about sold paintings and run out of canvases to continue her craft. Nina offered to buy her more supplies but the blonde refused, saying that the money should go to their home first. With their apartment currently out of power and little else in town that held her interest, Nina insisted that she try to get more rest while she was able to.

So while Nina was up before the sun even had a chance to glow the sky, Alison was sleeping peacefully at home, missing the beloved sunrise that usually woke her every morning. Today, Nina was making it her mission to catch that sunrise for her in an attempt to raise her spirits until their luck turned around.

Gripping the brakes on her handle bars, Nina skidded her bike to a halt, finally coming to her destination.

The docks were empty, though of course, no one in their right mind would stand this close to freezing water at 6:30 in the morning in January. Just Nina. She hopped off her bike and leaned it against the guardrail, taking in the peace and quiet of the morning after her frantic delivery ride in the icy streets. She was close by to one of the fishing warehouses, the rank smell cutting through the cold air sharply as a breeze carried it to her and sent a shiver down her spine.

The sky was beginning to shift in color, lightening the horizon a deep pink. She could have gone somewhere else to catch the sunrise; she could have just gone home and stood out on the fire escape, but the setting was perfect. Yes, the water was for the most part frozen, but capturing the warm colors against the chilly landscape was an artistic clash that she was sure Alison would appreciate.

When the first rays peeked over the horizon, Nina was elated. The colors shifted, gradually brightening the sky in a mix of warm colors that reminded her of Alison's array of new paints. She waited until the sun was halfway up before she took the first picture, and after seeing how perfect it came out on the digital display, she stayed to take more, leaning over the railing in her excitement as if to get closer to the morning.

That's when it all started. Her foot slipped on the frozen dock and she fell backwards, forgetting to keep her hold on the camera and flinging it towards the icy waters. She panicked as she fell and reached for it though she was too far away to catch it.

With the way she slipped, she expected to hit the ground hard, but the pain never came. She never struck the pavement, finding herself hovering just inches above it. Confused, she looked around to find her answer.

A stranger gripped her forearm in a tight lock, keeping her off the ground in a strong and steady hold. He looked to her and smiled sheepishly, and she smiled back, temporarily getting lost in his bright brown eyes before she noticed that he had caught her camera, just barely, by the hand strap.

He laughed kindly at the odd position he found himself in. "That was close," he said as he brought the camera back to safety over the rail and pulled Nina to her feet. "You should be careful over here, especially during winter with all the ice. Are you okay?"

Nina smoothed out her coat, feeling embarrassed and a little awkward, but still genuinely thankful. "I'm… I'm fine, thank you. This would have been a goner if you didn't show up when you did," she said when the muscular blonde man handed back her camera. He smiled shyly, and it was then that Nina noticed she'd never seen him before. She liked to wander around town on her days off, especially if Alison was painting or in a bad mood, and she'd met a lot of people along the way, but never before did she ever see this man.

She put her hands behind her back and smiled confidently now that her pictures were safe and she was free from another bruise caused by general clumsiness. "What's your name?" she asked kindly.

"Johnathan Wolff, but everyone just calls me John. And you are?"

"Hummel… ah, Nina, Nina Hummel," she stammered, offset by a sudden wave of nerves and a weird sense of nostalgia. He just laughed at her again and she pouted, balling up her fists and tightening her grip on the camera. She felt the sudden urge to whip it at his head.

"All right Hummel, it's good to meet you."

"Don't call me that! My name is Nina!"

"Okay, okay! Calm down, feisty-pants!"

* * *

"We ended up talking a little bit more and watched the sun rise. He works at the docks; that's why he was there to catch me, and somehow I ended up telling him that I worked here. He is nice…"

Ruby smiled wide at Nina's recount of how she had met the diner's newest patron, but the smile faded quickly when Nina slammed a tray down on the counter.

"But he's so frustrating!" Nina yelled as Ruby quickly apologized to the customer she nearly scared off from her outburst. "I mean, sometimes when we talk, it's nice and we're just fine, but then other times… like whenever I talk about hating work or wanting to sleep in or go shopping, he gets all lecture-y on me and it drives me nuts! And he's always teasing me!"

"I think he likes you."

"He's always mocking the way I work or dissecting how I make coffee… wait, what?" Nina finally caught on to what Ruby had said and stared at her with a wide-eyed, innocent expression. Ruby's sly smirk reaffirmed what she said.

"Nina, why else would he come in the diner _every day_ and sit at the counter?"

"…Because the coffee pot is over here?"

"No!" Ruby knew Nina could be ignorant sometimes, but this was just bad. "He sits over here because he knows that we come over here to work between tables. He sits over here so he can talk to you more."

"Well if he likes me then why is he always making fun of me?!" Nina asked, whirling and knocking a salt shaker off the counter. Ruby dove for it and caught it, exhaling when it landed in her hand instead of shattering against the floor. She was two for two today.

"Boys always tease the girls they like. Jeez, don't you know anything?

"Ew! I hope you're wrong! He can't like me, I mean, we just met and he smells like _fish_ all the time and…"

She trailed off in another ramble, telling Ruby all the reasons under the sun why she couldn't return John's affections, if he even really had affections for her at all. Ruby stood there and listened with a wide grin, nodding her head at Nina's excuses while silently interpreting them as a reaffirmation of her previous claim.

_Nina, you have no idea how lucky you are._

* * *

Alison was suffering.

Well… suffering seemed to be a bit drastic for the situation, but at the moment she felt it suited her predicament. Despite having had lunch provided to her by the festival's organization members, the chocolate stand next to her table had been driving her crazy all day, tricking her stomach into thinking it was empty and growling against her resilience. If that hadn't been enough, the Mayor of Storybrooke had just stopped by, and instead of talking to her at the table like the other visitors had done, she acted upon her authority and merely stepped around it to speak with her directly.

"Good evening, Miss Vinter," she said sternly, hands in the pockets of her coat. Alison smiled, shaky as it was, and set her palette down on her work table.

"H-Hello Madame Mayor," she said, feeling ever so small in the other woman's presence. She hadn't forgotten the time she ran into her on the street and nearly knocked her over and was eternally thankful that Regina hadn't placed some ridiculous legal charge against her for the accident. "Are you enjoying the festival?" she asked, hoping that her polite manners would erase the Mayor's memories of their last encounter.

If Regina did remember that night back in autumn, she surely didn't mention it or made a show of it. She briefly glanced around the gymnasium before setting her sights back on the artist. "Yes, quite. Actually I've come over here specifically because I wanted to request a piece of artwork for my own personal collection."

"Oh?" Alison's dark brows raised in surprise and she had to remember to close her mouth when she realized she was gaping. She shook off the stupor and reached for a pen and a pad of paper on her table, all the while secretly worrying that her abilities wouldn't be enough to satisfy Regina's expensive taste. "I'd be happy to do a painting for you," she said, lying perfectly through her teeth. "Did you have anything in mind? A scene, or maybe specific colors?"

"I would like a portrait of a castle." Specific yet oddly vague, Alison expected her to go on and stumbled over her notes when she didn't."

"Um… was there a certain castle, or…"

"Use your imagination," Regina said, smiling in such a way that should have been reassuring but made Alison feel uncomfortable. "Whatever colors you choose are fine as well."

"Okay. I'll just sketch out the design to make sure that you like it, and then-"

"Oh, there's no need for that!" Regina laughed, waving a hand at her. "Whatever you think is fine, I'll take. Is payment upon delivery okay with you?"

"Yes, that's fine, but…"

"Good. I'll be looking forward to seeing the finished product." And she just turned and left, leaving Alison there with nothing written on the order information other than "Regina Mills. Castle."

"Okay then…"

She sighed and picked up her palette again, trying to shake off another rocky encounter with the Mayor before her nose was invaded once again by the scent of her favorite dessert. She grumbled as she put the finishing touches on her painting. It had been a long day indeed.

Much to Alison's relief, though, she didn't have to wait much longer until the festival came to a close for another year. She had started packing up her supplies, much of the other vendors doing the same, when Nina came bounding in, waving excitedly as she greeted her roommate. Alison smiled when she came near, setting her to work immediately and having her fold the easels neatly for the school that had kindly loaned them to her for the day. "So how was today?" she asked as she wrapped the painting she worked on during the festival.

Nina's grin was infectious and it spread to both sides of her face. "Ali, I had so much fun at the festival this morning! Who knew there was so many businesses and activities in town?" She glanced at the back corner of the gym where she had met Anderson, hoping he would still be there, but his table had already been cleared and there was no sign of the auburn-haired gentleman.

Alison missed her longing stare and kept up the conversation. "And how was work?"

"Work."

She got a raised brow in her direction and Nina rolled her eyes to the ceiling. "What? I went there, I made money, and I came here. That's it." They locked eyes for a moment, neither one budging until Alison went back to her task, still somewhat unsatisfied by Nina's lazy answer. "So how did the festival go for you this year?"

"Really well, actually. Emma and Henry stopped by, I sold a lot of what I brought with me, and… I got a commission from Regina…"

"Ooh…"

"Yeah. No pressure or anything, right?" she laughed, stepping back and looking to make sure everything was all set before she left. "They said we can come back tomorrow to pick up the rest of our stuff, so I'll leave the table here for now." She picked up the painting she worked on, carrying it under one arm and turned bright eyes to her friend. "Do you mind if we make a stop somewhere before we go home?"

"Uh, sure. Where to?"

Before Alison could even answer, she was interrupted by one of the men who were running the chocolate booth next to her table. He held out a white box to each of them, insisting that they take it. "We made a little too much, so you guys take some. I'd hate to see it go to waste."

Nina thanked him while Alison nearly melted right there, praising herself for her patience after such a long day to be rewarded with free chocolate. There was a little pep in her step when she walked out of the gym, and Nina noticed it. "You're so sophisticated until someone gives you chocolate," she teased as she got on her bike. Alison smirked, putting her box of treats in the basket between the handlebars before taking her place on the rear bike pegs. She placed one hand on Nina's shoulder to keep herself stable while she kept her grip on the painting.

"Chocolate rejuvenates the mind and soul, you know."

"Yeah, yeah, I know that!" Nina laughed, recounting their numerous conversations about the wondrous healing and transformative power that resides in every bit of the sweet treat. "Okay, really though, where are we going?"

Alison wouldn't mention the destination, only giving directions once Nina started pedaling. The frigid winter air felt refreshing to her while her driver complained the entire way that it was too dark and cold to be making side-trips tonight. The blonde just smiled as she steered the redhead around another corner.

"This one's special," she said with a twinkle in her eye.

A short time later, Nina found herself stopped at a bike rack outside a moderately-sized building. She read the sign out front before looking at Alison, completely confused. "An orphanage?" she asked. Alison nodded, waving Nina along as a sign to hurry.

"Come on, there's only like fifteen minutes until visiting hours end."

"Okay, fine, but… why are we here?" She held the door open for her friend and followed her inside, feeling a bit uncomfortable knowing that this was the temporary home of the children in Storybrooke who had no family to call their own; she couldn't imagine what that must feel like and she felt sad just standing in the entrance hall. Alison wasn't answering her, having stopped at the front desk to talk to one of the caregivers. When the elderly woman left, Nina had a sudden realization and she panicked. "Oh no, you aren't thinking about adoption, are you!?"

"No! Oh God Nina, did you really think that-"

"Well then why are we here?"

"-can't even afford insurance." Alison sighed and motioned to the painting in her arms. "I wanted to come here because of this. You know how you asked me about the painting I was working on at the festival and I told you I didn't know what to do with it?"

"Yes…" Nina said, vaguely remembering the conversation. Alison could see that she didn't really remember what they had talked about but ignored her.

"Well, I decided to give it away."

That was big. It was rare that Alison ever kept a painting for herself, but it was unheard of for her to just give one away. Either it was a sign of their bettering situation or Alison had a vision of the apocalypse and decided to do something nice before the earth blew up. Those were the only conclusions Nina could come to, anyway.

And really, she would have wondered just who would have gone to the festival and impressed Alison enough to make her want to give away one of her paintings when the two most adorable kids trotted down the hallway.

"Miss Alison!" The woman in question smiled and knelt down to be at their level, laughing to herself as they ran up to her. Nina stepped back and watched quietly, finding a fascination in their eyes that she undoubtedly mirrored every time she saw Alison's paintings.

Two boys, one slightly taller than the other, both looked to be around the same age and shared the same face. But there was a distinct difference; one boy, the shorter one, had a crop of messy brown hair upon his head while the other had hair so blonde he could have passed off as Alison's son.

The boys were patient as Alison calmly unwrapped the canvas. She quirked a brow at them before she removed the cover completely. "Are you ready?

She hesitated for a moment, building the excitement before letting the cloth loose to allow the boys to set their sights upon the painting. From their awed expressions, Nina couldn't hold back her curiosity and stepped around to see it for herself.

For a moment she stopped breathing. She loved Alison's artwork, she always had, but this piece… it rivaled the fjord painting hanging in Mr. Gold's shop.

A solitary mountain peak stood alone against the dark night, weathered through another storm with fresh snow coating its rocky ledges, and as lonely as the mountain seemed to be, it had a companion. A glittering, majestic palace seemingly made of ice had been built into its side. It radiated sophistication and power, glowing bright against the darkness as a symbol of freedom.

"One of the nannies will hang it in your room so you can look at it whenever you want," Alison smiled. The boys looked at her in astonishment, not even sure of what to do before they tackled her in a hug.

"Miss Alison, it's wonderful!" the brunette said, pulling away to look at his brother and smiling. "Markus likes it, too!"

The blonde in question nodded against Alison's shoulder, refusing to let go. She giggled, glancing at Nina before getting one of those knowing mischievous smirks creeping upon her face. "Oliver, Markus, go give Nina a warm hug, too," she said, pointing to her friend. "I wouldn't have gotten here tonight if it weren't for her!"

The boys immediately left Alison and followed her direction, stopping in front of Nina and waiting for her to get down on her knees before they smothered her in hugs as well. She hugged them back, feeling as though she hadn't done much to make them happy.

"Thank you Miss Nina!" Oliver said, arms wrapped around her shoulders. "Will you come to visit us, too?"

Nina's eyes went wide and she looked over to Alison, who had given the painting to the caretaker she talked with earlier. She looked back at Nina and nodded slowly with a sad smile, saying nothing but conveying everything and Nina understood.

These boys had no family and barely had a home. It reminded Nina so much of that time not so long ago when the power had been shut off in the apartment and she spent every night shivering against the cold while Alison beat herself up about it during the day. Oliver and Markus only had each other.

And Nina only had Alison. No matter what love interests that came her way, she was the one true constant in her life.

She hugged them harder, finding herself attached to them already. Adoption was out of the question, but there was no reason they couldn't be friends.

"I'll visit every day that I can," she said, smiling down at them.

"Promise?"

"Promise."


	11. Pawn

"Come on, where's your happy smile?"

"Knock it off."

"Are you really just going to sit inside and paint all day?"

"Cut it out, Nina!"

The redhead pouted at the entrance of the living room, having been pushed out of her friend's personal space once already. Alison sat on the couch, staring at a blank canvas with her hands tangled in messy strands of blonde and an impatient tap in her foot. Nina sighed, knowing her teasing was only making her irritation worse and she leaned against the wall, a hand on her hip. "Look, I'm sorry, okay? I know you're stressed about Regina's painting. I thought maybe you'd just like to get out and get some fresh air or something."

Taking a deep breath in, Alison exhaled shakily and stopped her nervous foot tapping. "It's not the painting," she said, voice sullen and rigid. Her eyes danced upon the carpet and she bit her lip, wanting to avoid telling Nina the reason for her stress but knowing that she just couldn't. Nina would weasel it out of her one way or another. "I got a phone call from Emma this morning."

"Is everything okay?" Nina asked, concerned, truly wanting to know the full details of what exactly that phone call was about, but she knew better than to dig deeper than Alison was willing to share. She just waited patiently and felt herself being relieved a little when the blonde picked her head up and actually looked at her.

"Yeah, it's nothing too terrible, really. I'm just a little conflicted, that's all." And that's as far as she cared to go. She gave Nina a sad smile until she noticed what the younger girl was wearing. Normally she opted for the comfort and warmth of flannel shirts in winter, but Nina had on an olive green, short sleeved button up shirt (top few buttons left unbuttoned, of course) a pair of fitted blue jeans and clean brown sneakers. The extra money that they had been making plus Alison's profits from the festival had warranted a shopping trip, but even then Nina refused to wear her new clothes except for special occasions. Apparently today was one of those special occasions.

"And just where are you going?"

"Yesterday was Valentine's Day, but I didn't get to go out or do anything because I had to work, so… today is make-up Valentine's Day!"

"Oh. That's nice." Alison turned once more to the canvas, trying to visualize a castle in her mind when the obvious realization smacked her in the face. "Wait, are you going on a date!?"

Nina nodded enthusiastically, her cheeks glowing lightly just at the sound of it. "Anderson's going to show me the ranch today!"

"_Who?_"

"Anderson!"

"Well, yeah, that's his name, but I've never heard you mention him before," Alison said, raising a brow in question. "Actually the only guy I ever hear you talk about is John."

"Pfft. John's just a crabby guy who comes in the diner all the time," she said dismissively, taking a moment to laugh at her own pun and realizing that Alison just wasn't finding the humor. She cleared her throat. "And, okay, maybe it's not really a "date" date, but-"

"Nina, how long have you actually known this guy?"

"…A week."

"One week?!"

"It's true love, Ali!"

"Nina, what do you know about-"

She cut herself off. She had to. The words sounded bitter in her head and she knew it would sound crueler if she spoke them out loud. She sat back, trying to calm down, reminding herself that Nina, for all her quirky mannerisms and occasional bouts of poor judgment, was a capable adult. She was free to make her own decisions and live her life; who was Alison to stop her due to her own general mistrust of people?

The blonde leaned back into the couch and pulled her braid over her shoulder, absent-mindedly playing with the hairs at the tail. "Just be careful," she said.

"Well duh, thanks _Mom_," Nina mocked, earning another irritated look. She turned to leave when she stopped, having forgotten to mention something. "Oh yeah. Today's my day to go to the orphanage, so I'm not going to be home until dinner. Is it okay if I pick something up from Granny's on the way back?"

"That's fine."

"'Kay! And Ali…" Nina started, unsure of exactly what to say, but in her usual nature she just pressed on. "Whatever's bothering you, it'll be okay. Things are getting better around here and I just… everything will work out. Don't worry."

Nina left the apartment and the sound of the door closing behind her seemed to echo off the walls. Alison still sat there, just wanting to paint but feeling so worked up and anxious over the phone call and Nina's sudden love interest. She glanced at the clock in the living room and sighed. "Might as well just get this over with…" she mumbled as she rose from the couch to get ready to leave.

The phone call replayed in her head as she got dressed and she wished that she had imagined it.

"_Alison? This is Emma Swan."_

"_Oh, hi Emma. What can I do for you?"_

"_Uh, well," Emma stalled, hoping to break the news slowly. "I have a perpetrator in custody here at the office and he… well, he's asked to see you."_

_Immediately Alison felt her heart sink. She didn't know a whole lot of people in Storybrooke and wasn't very close with many of them. Who in their right mind would get themselves in trouble and ask to see her?_

"_Can I ask who it is?"_

_There was an audible sigh on the other line. "Mr. Gold."_

Alison slammed her closet door shut and exited the bedroom. Of all people, why would Mr. Gold ask for her? She was under the impression that they only shared a mutual business contract and a general dislike for each other, or at least, she could care less about the man if he didn't give her money every couple weeks.

She slipped on a pair of sneakers and headed out the door, only to pivot and march back in when she remembered it was below freezing outside and just wearing a t-shirt would grant her unwanted attention. She grabbed her coat and locked the door behind her, heading out into the cold.

She shoved her hands deep into her pockets as she walked down the street, ignoring everyone and everything she passed as she stewed in her own thoughts. She hardly noticed that her name was being called, and when she did, she only turned around out of curiosity.

"Henry! What-"

"Okay, before you ask me why I'm not at school, it's after 3:00," he said matter-of-factly, accurately guessing Alison's question before she even asked it. "And I'm by myself because the school's closest to the police station and I wanted to hang out with Emma before I go home."

"O-Okay, that's fine, but won't Regina be mad if she found out you were seeing her?"

"My mom thinks I'm going to therapy right now," Henry told her, shifting the weight of his backpack on his shoulder as he caught up to Alison's pace. "And she works late today, so as long as I get home before she does I'm good."

"You know, maybe you should try doing what your mom says for once? I asked Emma why I never see you around much and she says you were grounded."

"That's only because my mom doesn't like Emma and she hates it when I hang out with her!" Henry said, his distraught clearly written in his face. "And it's not fair. Emma's a great person."

Alison took a moment to think as his confession reminded her of the harsh words she nearly spat at Nina earlier. "Do you think your mom would like Emma if they spent more time together?" Really, she should have been asking the boy if he thought that she'd feel better about Nina dating if she weren't dating a complete stranger. Hell, she'd feel a hundred times better if she could just put a face to the name.

Henry shrugged, glancing at the clock tower as they passed the library. "I don't know… maybe, I mean, my mom's the Evil Queen."

"She's what now?"

"Never mind," he said, deflated. Alison just shook her head at him, trying to dismiss his obsession with fairy tales while Henry looked to her with a plea in his eye. He wanted so badly for someone to believe his theory about the curse over Storybrooke, and he knew that if Alison could break free from the curse she'd be able to help him free the rest of the town, or at the very least, be willing to help him find a way. It was just hard getting her to see what he believed was real because she was quite the academic intellect and an equally stubborn woman. Any time he brought up the topic of magic, she claimed there was no such thing; there was only science. To her, fairy tales were just that: tales of myth and make believe, and while she did enjoy such stories, they weren't real. None of it was.

It was frustrating, because every time he saw her paintings, he was reminded of a particular story in his book, one that suited her so well. If he couldn't convince Alison that she was just as cursed as the rest of the town, then he would at least make her enjoy the element he believed to be tied to her before the seasons changed. He stopped suddenly and pointed to the other side of the street. "What's that over there?!" he asked, feigning panic.

Of course, Alison fell for the elementary trick, believing his frantic state. She turned her head, equally panicked and searched the street, trying to find what the boy had been pointing to. "Henry, I don't see-"

She realized a little too late what was going on when a snowball smacked her in the face. Henry took off running down the street and Alison scooped up a fistful of snow, packing it into a ball as she ran after him. "Oh no; you're not getting off _that_ easy!"

The snowball fight down the street was a sight to behold and they fired ammunition on the move, ducking behind lampposts and mailboxes for cover. It had Alison grinning like an idiot and making a show of herself, something she'd normally be embarrassed by, but she didn't care right now. Henry brought out that youthful side of her that only showed when she was with Nina, and it was fun to just let go instead of being the responsible, older sister she acted as to the two of them.

When they arrived at the police station winded, red-faced and covered in melting snow, Emma just stared at them with her arms crossed. "Okay, what happened to you two?"

"I am the snowball fight champion!" Henry claimed. He got a playful shove from Alison and he smiled up at her when she ruffled his damp hair.

"You only beat me this time because I'm tired," Alison claimed. "Next time I won't go easy on you!"

Emma looked between them in disbelief, but still humored, she put an arm around Henry's shoulders and led him to the office. "Okay "kids," it's time we all got to work. Henry, go start on your homework. I'll be there in a bit to help."

Henry took a seat at Emma's desk in the private office in the station and she shut the door, more so to keep Henry from hearing the conversation than to simply give him quiet to work. Alison brushed off her coat, wanting to avoid the reason why she was here, but she knew deep down that she couldn't. She met Emma's eyes with worry, but the sheriff seemed poise despite the prisoner she was keeping. "What's going on?" Alison asked, only slightly aware of the situation.

Emma leaned against the door and looked at the man sitting inside the jail cell. Alison would only glance at him, oddly happy but remorseful to see Mr. Gold behind bars. "I'm just going to give you an abridged version of what happened," Emma said, waiting until Alison nodded to continue. "Someone broke into Gold's house-"

"I thought someone broke into his store a couple of months ago?" Alison interrupted.

Emma rolled her eyes and gave the other blonde a look. "Yeah, well, you work with him. I think you understand best that he doesn't have many friends."

Oh yeah. Who would want to be friends with a greedy, manipulative deal-maker whose chosen profession was as close to legal thievery as one could get? Alison considered Mr. Gold to be many things, but a friend was not one of them.

"Basically he couldn't wait for me to do my job and found the guy who robbed him, gagged him, took him to a cabin just outside town and nearly beat him to death."

The pale woman grew paler and Alison's heartbeat jumped up to her throat. "He did all that?" she asked, getting a firm nod in response. "And he wants to see _me?_"

"That's what he said. I don't let my perps out for phone calls, but it's really up to you if you want to talk to him or not. I have to stay here to listen, though, so figure that in to your decision."

Really, Alison just wanted to go home and work on her commissions. She knew Mr. Gold wasn't exactly as noble as he dressed, but she'd never expect him to do something like _this_… though he did skewer her best painting with hardly a thought or remorse. Her instincts just told her to go, just walk out the door and leave this problem behind, but she caught Mr. Gold staring at her with a plea in his eye, and she couldn't help herself. She had to talk to him.

With a breath of courage, she walked over to the blue couch placed next to his cell and sat down, waiting for him to say the first word.

And he didn't, which for the record was a first for him. She avoided his gaze, choosing to look at her sneakers instead and clasped her hands together as she kept waiting. Eventually, the nerves in her stomach grew to an unbearable level and she picked her head up, glaring at him with confused, worried eyes. "Why am I here?" she asked, almost more to herself than to him.

The pawnbroker sighed, resting his hands on the hilt of his cane as he sat hunched over on the side of the provided bed. "Well you didn't have to come if you didn't want to," he stated, noting her obvious nerves. He gripped his cane tighter when her blue eyes wouldn't leave him, silently demanding an answer for her summons. "I need a favor from you. I need you to bail me out."

"You want me to _what_?" Her eyes were wide, even more confused than they were before. Of all people, why her? She'd only been the victim of his numerous scams and he had taken so much of her money that she was sure she was paying for his shop utilities herself. Blue eyes narrowed and a tight scowl crossed her face with those thoughts and a reminder of why the man was behind bars. "You nearly beat a man to death!"

"He deserved what he had coming to him," Gold stated simply. It wasn't helping to calm Alison down or sway her decision at all.

"For stealing from you? He was probably one of the many people in this town you've screwed over," she shot dangerously. "If he's struggling as much as I was I don't blame him for breaking into your house."

"Is that a threat, Ms. Vinter?" He stood from his seat, dropping his cane and gripping the iron structure of his cage. "As you know, I don't take kindly to threats."

"Tough talk from someone on the wrong side of the bars."

The tension filled the room and Alison was practically brimming with power. All those conversations and deals they've made over the past years have acclimated her to his ways. She could sense his desperation behind his weak excuses and even his threats meant nothing to her with metal bars and a locked door between them.

But this powerful feeling was overwhelming. It didn't suit her, it scared her actually, and she feared going too far and pushing Mr. Gold to seek revenge against her for something she said once he did get out of prison. She stayed composed, crossed her legs and kept her hands folded, reigning back the bold, regal persona that had taken over and addressing him more sincerely. "Why don't you just pay the bail on your own? You have money."

Mr. Gold backed off from the bars, limping to his cane and picking it up carefully. "Oh, we all know that I have money, Dearie, but that's not the problem." He turned around, cane in hand, and stood in his usual stance with the golden hilt centered beneath his palms. "The problem is that I had none on me at the time of my arrest, and thus, I cannot pay to leave this cell. That is why I need you."

Alison's strong cadence from before was fading with an underlying realization that refused to surface within her mind. She sat there, seriously considering his request, and when the thought of money came up she got frustrated. "What makes you think I even _have_ that much money to begin with?" she asked, palms open with the wide question. Bitterness laced her tongue at the thought of the apartment in December, cold and powerless due to this man's cruelty. "You hardly pay me anything."

"And you won't get paid at all unless you get me out of here."

Throughout the conversation Alison had felt as though she had the upper hand. She felt powerful, strong, and critical perhaps in her accusations, but they were right. Even with all her strength, Gold had managed to play his trump card at the last minute. He didn't even need to elaborate. She knew what he meant, and it knocked the wind right out of her sails.

Her surplus from the festival was a great boost to the household funds, but it wouldn't be enough to get them started in a new apartment if she wasn't making money through Mr. Gold's shop, and Mr. Gold couldn't give her money if he wasn't there to run the shop that sold her paintings. Again, she found herself stuck.

She _hated_ having to be stuck working with this man, but right now, there was little other choice. She conceded, standing up and facing him to finalize the terms of their agreement. "I can't get you out until tomorrow," she said, realistically able to help him today, but giving herself a night to sleep on the decision and perhaps change her mind if she could find a workaround to her reliance on him. "The next time I walk into your store, I want the money from my paintings and double the amount of bail money I'm paying to let you go."

The added requirement on the end of the bargain didn't go unnoticed, and it amused the pawnbroker. Alison was getting better at this.

"Aye. I can agree to that." He put his hand through the bars of the cell and Alison shook it once, feeling sick when she realized that she was shaking hands with a man charged with assault. She lowered her head, blonde strands shadowing her eyes and mirroring a deep frown.

"You really owe me for this, you know."

"That I do, Dearie."

She hardly noticed someone behind her clearing their throat and only turned at a quiet mention of her name. Emma motioned to her silently, holding the door to her office open and beckoning her to come inside.

Once the door was shut, Alison let out an exhausted sigh and felt like she could collapse. Her legs shook and she held on to the edge of the desk, covering her eyes with her other hand as Emma put a light touch on her back.

"For someone who admits to having social anxieties and hating conflict, you nearly kicked his ass back there," Emma said, forgetting to filter her language for Henry from her enthusiasm. "I'm impressed."

Alison closed her eyes at the compliment, her hand still covering her face as she shook off the adrenaline. The last five minutes felt like a rush, a burst of anger flanked by excitement and analytical overload. It exhausted her and as she reflected on what just happened, she wondered if the outcome could have happened any other way.

She felt stupid when she realized it, but Mr. Gold specifically asked for her to bail him out because in the long run, she couldn't afford not to. She played into his hands like she always did and she hated herself for it.

Emma watched her cautiously, making sure that she was okay before she retreated her hand from her back. She leaned on the edge of her desk, arms crossed as she addressed the other blonde once more. "So are you serious about bailing him out?"

She paused at the question. Mr. Gold had taken so much from her, ruined her work, made a mockery of her negotiation skills and belittled Nina every time he saw her. It would have been satisfying to see him spend a good few years behind bars, or however long he would be there, but she couldn't afford to do it.

Reluctantly, she nodded. "Yeah. I don't have much of a choice. Nina and I are doing fine financially, maybe even better than I think we are, but it's not going to last if I can't get my paintings sold."

"Well," Emma started, breathing in and shrugging her shoulders with the intent to bring some light to the situation, "if it makes you feel better, this really can't hurt. The charges still stand even if you bail him out, so hopefully he'll get what he deserves and you'll still get your money." She sighed, knowing that if Gold did eventually go to jail, Alison wouldn't be getting paid at all during his stay there. "I hope this all works out for you, kid."

_I really hope it does, too_, Alison thought to herself. She thought about what Nina might say if she were here. She wouldn't care about the money, because for as strong as Alison's sense of justice was, Nina's was stronger.

_Smelt the key to his cell and wear it as a necklace!_

Yeah, something like that sounded pretty accurate.

"If you guys are done…" The two women looked away from each other to the boy working quietly at the desk. He dropped his pencil on his book and looked between them with hope. "Is anyone good at geometry?"

Alison grinned. Finally, something she was good at that didn't require an argument.

* * *

"I'm home… Oliver and Markus say hello," Nina called quietly as she opened the door, knocking into the frame of it as she maneuvered herself and the bag she carried through to the apartment. She shrugged off her coat and closed the door behind her, noticing the silent wave of a hand Alison spared her from the living room. "How was your day?"

Alison sat cross-legged on the couch with her sketchpad balanced on her knees and a pencil in her hand. She kept working as she fabricated her answer. "It was… interesting," she said, wanting to exclude the details of her visit to the sheriff's office. Nina didn't need to know that she was going to pay Mr. Gold's bail or that he was even in jail in the first place; she'd find out the latter information soon enough. Lord knows that news of any sort of scandal or crime spread like wildfire in this town. "I took a walk around town to get some fresh air and I ran into Henry. He said he needed help with his geometry homework, so…"

"You can never say no when it comes to helping him with homework," Nina grinned. "I'm surprised Regina hasn't asked you to work as his tutor by now!"

Nina laughed when Alison's hands flew to cover her face. "No! Oh God, that would be terrible! It's bad enough I have to paint for her!" She leaned back into the couch, resting her head on the back cushion as she watched Nina retrieve take-out containers from the brown bag. "So how was your date?" she asked with a sly smile and a dark brow raised in question. It was Nina's turn to blush and she stopped mid-movement.

"Ah, well, it wasn't really much of a _date_, date…" she laughed, piling the containers in her arms and bringing them into the living room. She plopped on the couch and handed one of the white boxes to her roommate. "But it was still really nice! He showed me the ranch and we walked through the stables… I got to meet his horse, Sitron, and oh! There was a moose there, too!"

Alison discarded her sketchpad in favor for the takeout grilled chicken gyro Nina handed her and was entranced by the smell when she realized what Nina had just said. "Wait, did you say a moose?"

"Yeah! Or… well, at least I think it was a moose… but anyway, we started talking, and we realized that we like a lot of the same things! We both love horses, _obviously_, and spring is his favorite season too, and you'll never guess what his favorite food is!"

Alison didn't expect for Nina to wait for an answer, but she did. "Um, I dunno. Sandwiches?"

"_Yes!_" Nina squeaked, shaking her fists in a love-dazed excitement until her eyes narrowed at her best friend suspiciously. "Wait. How did you know that Anderson likes sandwiches…?" she asked slowly.

Alison blinked, looking at the club sandwich her friend's hand before meeting her eyes again. "I guessed? I mean, you like sandwiches," she said, pointing to the one she was holding, "so I just assumed… why are you looking at me like that?"

"Have you been spying on me?" Alison rolled her eyes at the absurd accusation.

"No. Nina, that's ridiculous."

Oh, but Nina was sure she had a hunch. Alison's irritation this morning when she mentioned Anderson _and_ her sudden interest in how the date went? Oh yeah, her roommate could be aloof and sneaky, but Nina saw through her mask. "You totally are! You're jealous that I have a boyfriend!"

The blonde clenched her hands and pouted, her emotions from that afternoon coming back. "No, I am not, and how could I have been spying on your date when I was at the police station all afternoon?"

"You…! You what?"

It was the one thing she wanted to avoid talking about with Nina and she opened the door to that conversation not even five minutes after she came home. She turned her head away, just looking at the wall to avoid Nina's questioning glare. "I don't want to talk about it."

"What don't you want to talk about?" Nina asked, pressing for an answer. "You were grumpy about that phone call before I left this afternoon and you didn't want to talk about _that_, and now you tell me that you've been at the sheriff's office all day and you don't want to talk about _that_," Nina huffed, clearly frustrated. "I spill my guts to you every day about everything and you used to do the same thing, so why are you leaving me out when something's obviously bothering you?!"

"It's my problem…"

"So then it's my problem too, Alison! We grew up together, we live together, so please, just talk to me…" Alison turned back to meet Nina's sincere teal eyes. She wasn't angry, but sad and upset, searching for some kind of understanding. "Don't shut me out. I want to help."

There was a moment of silence.

And then Alison told her everything. The phone call, how she ran into Henry on the way to the police station, how she had an outstanding sense of confidence while debating and arguing with Mr. Gold only to realize that she had become one of his unknowing pawns. She'd spent the next few hours tutoring Henry just to shake off the emotions before she came home.

Nina listened quietly, not interrupting to simply understand what the other had been going through, and once the blonde ran out of things to say, Nina just reached for her and lightly touched her elbow. "Thank you," she said, smiling a little before it dropped. "I wish you would've told me earlier, though."

Blue eyes snapped shut tightly and a hand flew to her forehead, trying to think through the emotions. "I know I should have, but I didn't know I was going to have to bail him out. I just kind of went there blind…"

"So you're going back there tomorrow?" Nina asked. With a shaky sigh, she got a nod in confirmation. "Okay then. I'll go with you."

"You don't have to-"

"Nope! I'm going and you can't change my mind!" Nina proclaimed. "Every time one of us has to deal with him alone, he makes us want to keep secrets from each other," she realized, recalling how she tried to keep the repaired painting a secret from Alison, and now Alison had tried to avoid talking about paying Mr. Gold's bail. "We'll go together, because I don't know about you, but I always feel better when I have to talk to him and you're there."

Truthfully, there were moments at the sheriff's office that day where Alison felt much the same way. She felt so cold and unfeeling when she first addressed Mr. Gold, wanting him to pay fully for his crime without even thinking about what repercussions that might have on her, and by extension, Nina. Paying his bail would buy her some time to find another way to get her paintings out to market while he still acted as her broker. She wouldn't lose money in doing so and wouldn't forfeit the progress they were making on the new apartment.

She smiled back at the redhead and nodded. "Fine. After we take care of him, we'll go straight to his shop to get my money. Then we'll go visit Oliver and Markus together."

"It's a plan!"

* * *

They sat together on the couch, Alison tapping her foot impatiently, hunched over with her elbows on her knees while Nina was comfortably cross-legged, holding her ankles and rocking back and forth gently while looking between Emma and Mr. Gold.

Somehow word had gotten out about his arrest and now reporters from The Daily Mirror and a few other magazines were waiting outside the sheriff's office, wanting an interview with the man who owned the town. The crowd wasn't very big until the reporters drew the attention of some interested citizens, and now the parking lot seemed to be at capacity with bodies wanting to confirm the rumors.

Emma had to lock the doors to keep people from getting in and called Alison ahead of time to come in through a side door that had to be opened from the inside. "I really hope you're worth all this trouble," Emma had said when she let Mr. Gold out of his cell to sign the paperwork of his release.

Alison had already paid his bail and signed whatever documents that needed her mark. Now she and Nina were stuck waiting for Mr. Gold to leave and draw the crowd away so they could make their exit unnoticed. They sat and listened to Emma explaining what would happen now that Mr. Gold was out on bail.

"There's a court date set up for your arraignment in a few weeks," she explained. She cast a quick glance at the other blonde sitting quietly before focusing back on Gold. "Don't let your bail go to waste and miss it, otherwise I'll hunt you down again and you'll only end up with a longer sentence."

"I'm well aware of how the legal system works, Ms. Swan, but regardless, why don't you just do me a favor and drop the charges?" Mr. Gold asked. "I'd be happy to collect on that one you owe me."

The blonde sheriff shook her head, her lips drawn in a firm and thin line. "I can't. Yes, I know I owe you a favor, but this is all out of my hands now. You committed the crime and I caught you in a confession. The court is going to expect you at this arraignment and if you don't show up you're guilty, end of discussion."

There were no quick-witted responses to that and Emma sighed, turning to the younger women watching impatiently on the couch. "Don't mention that Alison paid your bail, either," she reminded him. "If anyone asks, just say that you paid it on your own. These two don't need the attention."

Mr. Gold laughed and turned towards Alison, light dancing in his eyes where hers darkened. "What's wrong, Dearie? You don't want to be recognized as the hero who let the dashing shop owner out of jail?"

Nina started at that, about to say something back but Alison beat her to it.

"No, I don't want to be known as the idiot who freed the town's biggest pickpocket who mugged a man for no apparent reason."

He brushed off the insult as though it was nothing and his smile faded with the reminder of business. "Remember who's paying who, Dearie."

"And remember the deal we made," she snapped back, "_and_ the favor you owe me."

"Yes, of course." He straightened his posture, adjusted the knot in his tie and looked to the hall that led towards the exit. "Well Ms. Swan, am I free to go?"

Emma uncrossed her arms and motioned towards the hall, unwilling to let him go but having little choice. "Sure, go spread your wings before the dogs at the door tear you to pieces," she said, reminding them all about the savage reporters clawing at the front doors. "I'll walk you out. Alison, Nina, stay here for a bit. I'll let you know when you can leave."

The pair on the couch watched as Emma led Mr. Gold away and Alison glared after him, almost regretting paying his bail after the snooty way he just talked at her. Nina noticed her dark eyes and bumped her in the shoulder, trying to bring her out of it. "Well that's over now," she reminded. "We'll get out of here and everything can just go back to the way it used to be!"

And to be honest, Alison wished that things could be the way they were, when she was unwittingly falling into her place with Mr. Gold's schemes, but now that she _knew_ her place with him she wasn't sure if that kind of ignorance would be such a peaceful existence. For now, she had little choice. She had to have some kind of payment to live off of aside from sporadic commissions. She needed her paintings on the market.

She didn't want to admit it, but things had been changing quite drastically around town and it was beginning to catch up with her. It wasn't enjoyable, she felt like she didn't have enough time to just stop thinking and relax and if she said or did the wrong thing, then everything would come crashing down on top of her. She started feeling that way ever since the night the clock tower started working again, but she couldn't let Nina, who saw the change as a positive thing, know that she felt it was something bad.

So she stayed quiet and waited for Emma to return. Her hazel eyes were wide and she stopped at one of the desks outside her office, typing on a keyboard as she looked at a computer screen. "The crowd out there is vicious; they nearly jumped on him before he even walked out," she said, bringing up the camera feeds from outside the building. "We'll wait a little bit until they leave, then you guys can sneak out. Sorry about all this," she added, knowing that Alison's anxiety had nearly gone through the roof when she called her about the growing commotion this morning.

"Why is everyone so excited over this?" Nina asked, standing up and wandering over to the computer to see what Emma was looking at. The sheriff shrugged, watching the crowd beginning to break up as reporters followed Mr. Gold down the street.

"People love a good scandal," she said, "and in a town like this where _usually_ nothing crazy happens, it gets blown out of proportion fast. People eat it up like they've been craving it all year long." She continued watching the monitor, silently wishing that the last few lingering reporters would just go away. "I want to get you guys out quietly so nobody tries to connect you with his bail." She looked over her shoulder to the other blonde in the room. "You doing okay, Alison?"

"I'll be better once I get my money back," she joked, aching from the chunk the bail cost took out of her savings for the new apartment. "Next time you have to lock him up, please warn me if he wants me to bail him out again."

"Will do. And… I think you guys are clear." Nina peeked over her shoulder as Emma scrolled though the various outdoor cameras and maneuvered them to scan for any hangers-on. "Go out the front doors just in case. If anyone sees you, you lost your pet or something."

"But we're not allowed to have pets in the-"

"I know, Nina. It's an alibi."

"Ohh…"

They thanked Emma kindly for looking out for them and went on their way, following her instructions and exiting the building from the front instead of the side door. They walked at a casual pace, keeping attention off themselves and gaining distance from the sheriff's office while faking a conversation unrelated to their brief visit. Alison talked about mathematical equations required to find the area of various geometrical shapes while Nina answered her with various excited responses of "potato," completely unable to fake a conversation in fear of saying something she shouldn't despite regularly being able to ramble on about a topic just on a single take of breath.

Stopped at an intersection just down the street, they waited at the crosswalk, thinking their ruse was normal enough to avoid detection. As they waited for the light to change to cross the street, a short, elderly gentleman approached them during Alison's dissection of the Pythagorean Theorem, interrupting her lecture with a polite grunt. "Excuse me, but did I just see you come out of the sheriff's office?" he asked.

"Pota-heey…" Nina answered, slurring the words together in an awkward response when she realized that someone other than Alison was talking to her. She turned, searching for the voice when she finally looked down, finding the short, white-haired balding man hiding a smile beneath his turned mustache. He peered up at her down his long nose, a brow quirked when she wasn't answering his question.

"Y-Yeah, we did," Alison said, providing the answer instead. She was about to change the subject or deflect his question as a rude one, but he interrupted her before she could get another word out.

"You wouldn't happen to know who bailed Mr. Gold out of jail, would you?" he asked, leaning closer to Nina in pursuit of the answer. "Hmm?"

Nina leaned back and glanced at Alison who nearly brought her palm to her face from being discovered so quickly after taking steps to make sure it wouldn't happen. "I uh, we lost our cat," Nina explained, taking a step back to retrieve her personal space. She spied Alison putting on a frown and she did the same, feigning sadness. "We went to the police station to see if they could help us find him."

"Oh dear…" the man said, pulling out a small notebook and a pen from his back pocket. "Perhaps if you told me its name I could help find it for you."

Nina glanced at Alison and she stared back, wide-eyed. They answered him simultaneously.

"Magnus."

"Fluffernutters!"

There was an awkward staring contest between them and the short man pushed his thin framed glasses up his nose as he cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that."

"It's…" Nina started, making sure Alison wasn't going to intervene, not that she wanted to now. "Magnutters. He's a silver tabby with black stripes," she said, elaborating to strengthen the ruse.

"Ah, got it. Magnutters, male, silver fur with black stripes. Ah, and before I forget," the man reached into the pocket of his black coat, producing a business card and presenting in to Nina. "My name is Harold Torvik, author of "What's New in Storybrooke?" Section C, column two in The Daily Mirror," he said, handing the card over with pride. "If perhaps you might remember overhearing anything about Mr. Gold's case while you were in there, do give me a call. Good day!"

He turned and headed down the street, presumably to follow the other reporters to Mr. Gold's shop in pursuit of more answers from the man himself. They watched him go, wondering how the heck he managed to avoid Emma's detection outside the office while being amazed at themselves for successfully bumbling through his questions and sending him away.

There was a silence that followed his parting and Alison just looked at Nina with dull eyes. "Magnutters? Really?"

"Well I had to think of something!"

Alison huffed as the crosswalk light began to count down and they moved to the other side of the street. "Remind me to never let you name our pet if we ever get one."

"What, you don't like Fluffernutters either?"

"Nina, hush."

"I think it's a cute name! Why did you pick such a dark and scary name like Magnus," she said, deepening her voice when she said the name. "It's so brooding, like-"

"Be quiet!"

"Why?"

"He's following us. Don't turn around. Look." Alison pointed to the trunk of a parked car, urging Nina to look at the reflection of the street behind them in its shine.

And in that reflection was Harold Torvik, calmly keeping his distance behind them. "He didn't believe me?" she whispered, panic filling her expression. Alison shrugged, reaching for and grabbing her friend's hand protectively.

"Either he believes we let Mr. Gold go or he's desperate for a story," she whispered, keeping an eye on the reporter in each car they passed. She sighed, hating the situation but knowing there was nothing she could do about it now. "Let's just skip going to Mr. Gold's for now and head straight for the orphanage."

"This could have gone a lot better…" Nina mumbled, not at all regretting her decision to go with Alison today after all the chaos and nerves that were the result of Mr. Gold's freedom and feeling better that she didn't make her go through it alone. The blonde shrugged, forging ahead, wanting to be with the boys who were able to melt her heart every time she saw them.

"Yeah, well, that's why you don't trust people as soon as you meet them," she warned. "I trusted Mr. Gold with my paintings and here we are. He steals my money, threatens to kill my work and I have to bail his ass out of jail to get paid."

Nina listened to the warning, compared it to her own naiveté when it came to meeting new people and made unmentioned parallels between Gold and Anderson. Sure, Anderson was a nice man, but even after spending most of a day with him, she felt as though he knew more about her than she did of him. She'd been so charmed by him that she hadn't bothered to get to know him well enough to truly trust him or be able to say that they were really a couple. She took the advice and planned to use it the next time she met with him, learning from Alison's mistakes and vowing to be more perceptive.

She spotted another glimpse of Harold in a reflection and she felt her friend's grip tighten in her own.

"I am never bailing anyone out ever again," Alison whispered. Nina leaned over, nodding her head against her shoulder.

"Potato."

* * *

**AN: Oh man... do I have some stuff planned for this one, especially for Season 2!**

**That's right. I'm taking this to Season 2. I can't say for sure when exactly in the OUAT timeline this story will finish, but for right now I'm not concerned about it. I'm having too much fun writing it :)**


	12. Fresh Start

Nina sat on the edge of her mattress staring hopelessly at her roommate snuggled beneath her blanket on the other side of the room. She hugged her knees, not sure of what to do or say, but she had to keep trying.

"Ali, _please_ get up?"

All she got was a muffled, resolute, "No."

Nina huffed, spread her arms out and flung herself back on the mattress. "Come oooon," she whined. "You gotta get up and do _something_. Just laying here isn't going to change anything!"

Alison responded by pelting Nina in the head with last week's Friday edition of The Daily Mirror. Nina picked it up, glanced at the headlines and sat up before tossing it in the corner on her side of the room. "You're still holding onto this?" she asked, nervously glancing back at the pages that had, of course, been thrown open to Section C.

When Nina delivered the paper that morning she didn't notice it, but when she brought home a copy for Alison, she almost didn't give it to her.

"MR. GOLD OUT ON BAIL," had been the headline that morning with a small excerpt of the feature article below it. Just above the headline, in smaller print, were advertisements for other articles in the paper, one of which reading "Lovers Lose Family Pet; Seeks Child Adoption." It hadn't promised anything good.

The article inside wasn't much better as Harold Torvik forged an entire interview with them and got nothing right about them but their names, which Nina suspected he got from her work file at The Daily Mirror and guessed Alison's from her emergency contact information. Within the article he described them as being 18 and 15 years old, unnecessarily detailing them as high school dropouts and insisted they were lovers mourning the loss of their missing cat Magnutters. He faked their quotes and insisted they went to the orphanage to adopt a child despite Nina, according to Torvik, being too young to do so.

It was a ridiculous piece of work and they were both surprised it got past the editors without Nina or Alison's permission to let it be published, but it did, and it was making things difficult for them. Nina would get teased at the diner for hiding her relationship with her roommate, and Alison, on the one day she gathered enough courage to actually leave the apartment, had been on the receiving end of verbal abuse, getting called hurtful names for seducing a minor despite her insisting that they were simply roommates. Their landlord had dropped by their apartment on a whim for a surprise inspection, searching for any signs of cat fur in their living space in an attempt to catch them breaking their tenant contract by having a pet in their unit.

The whole ordeal was humiliating and it kept Alison inside all week out of embarrassment, save for that one day when all she wanted to do was get her payment from Mr. Gold and go home. Nina, equally embarrassed and infuriated about the fake reports, went straight to the editor of The Daily Mirror before she started her paper run one morning. She told him about Torvik's lies and false accusations, using Alison's own words to describe to the man that he had "written the article without proper sourcing or the interviewee's consent." As a result, the editor had promised to personally write an article in Torvik's place to discount his claims and make a formal apology to the two of them. Unfortunately the article wouldn't print until tomorrow and Alison refused to leave the apartment until everyone in town had a chance to read it.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the customer flow to Mr. Gold's shop all but ceased after word got out that he had mugged and hospitalized Moe French, the floral shop owner. No business to his store meant less people going to look at Alison's paintings, which would eventually result in no payments. The entire situation was just a mess.

"Maybe we can just go out and look at a few stores?" Nina suggested, trying to get the other motivated to search for a new business partner to escape from the contracts and deals Mr. Gold held her in every time she tried to sell her stock. "There aren't really any art galleries in town, but maybe…"

"Nooo," Alison begged, pulling her blanket over her head. "Just leave me alone, Nina."

"Okay…" It pained the redhead to see her best friend so defeated, especially after the upswing they had been riding for over a month now. Quietly, Nina stood, heading for the door of their bedroom and pausing before she headed out. "I'm going to the ranch today to visit Anderson," she mentioned. "And I know you're probably not up for it, but Oliver and Markus miss you, and Henry keeps asking about you when he comes into the diner with Emma, so…"

Alison didn't move or say anything. She just lay there, still buried in her blanket and Nina bit her lip, worried for her friend but unsure of how to make anything better until that article got printed tomorrow. She sighed, quietly said a goodbye as she shut the bedroom door behind her and grabbed her coat and boots, getting ready to head to the ranch.

* * *

The bike ride to the edge of town wasn't as horrendous as it had been all month long. The chill of February was beginning to thaw unseasonably, bringing cold rain and fog to Storybrooke instead of snow and ice. It wasn't quite warm enough to thoroughly enjoy the outdoors, but it sure beat slipping and sliding on slick roads. Nina was thankful she had one less obstacle trying to throw her off her bike.

She approached the stables with a little apprehension, not having seen or even talked to Anderson since the scandalous newspaper article printed. He wouldn't know the truth and her side of the story, and in spite of Alison's warnings not to tell anyone about Mr. Gold's bail provider, she felt itchy just keeping the secret to herself. She really wanted someone else to understand the situation just so she could talk about it, but she wasn't quite sure if Anderson was the one to be that ear she desperately needed.

He greeted her happily when she met him inside and the starting conversation was light and joyful, but it didn't take long for it to spiral out of control.

"Why didn't you tell me you were dating your roommate?" he asked, bitterness lining his tone. Nina rolled her eyes as she approached Sitron's stall where he was currently working.

"I'm _not_ dating Alison!" she said, frustrated with the false fact the entire town believed. Anderson shook his head as he got to work cleaning off Sitron's back hooves, casting his glance briefly at Nina before focusing back on what he was doing.

"And to think you've been leading me on this entire time…" he said lowly, followed by a grunt from his steed. The betrayed look in his face was real, not a feint he usually teased her with. "I thought you were serious about this."

"I am!" Nina argued. "You're not listening to me! Everything written in that article is just a big lie Harold wrote to make a good story. I'm eighteen years old, Alison's twenty-two, we go to the orphanage just to visit our friends and neither one of us wants to adopt, okay?!" she half-yelled, her face beet red as she caught her breath from the explanation. Anderson just stared at her wide-eyed, pick frozen in his hand as he processed everything she just said.

He dropped Sitron's back leg and waited for him to rebalance before signaling to pick up his front. "Okay, that makes sense too. Why would Harold be so desperate to write a story like that, though? If he didn't get your approval, it shouldn't have been published in the first place."

"Alison said the same thing," Nina mumbled, noting Anderson's lack of an apology for not believing her. She walked up to Sitron and scratched him lightly under the chin, causing the horse to whinny at her touch. "Maybe his articles are normally bad or something and he wanted to make an impression. I don't normally read the newspaper so I really wouldn't know."

"That's still a pretty low thing to do, though, making up a story that ruins people's lives just so he could benefit from it." He frowned, dropping Sitron's leg and looking up at Nina calmly petting the horse's neck. "I really hope he gets fired for it. I'd hate to read any more of his lies."

Nina smiled, agreeing that Harold Torvik should be properly punished for the article, not just for its false claims, but mostly for the havoc he had caused in both her and Alison's lives in just a few days. She closed her eyes briefly, lost in the motion of petting Sitron and the thought of the apology article being published tomorrow.

"So who do you think bailed Mr. Gold out of jail?"

Her teal eyes opened wide at the question and she stared at the grim face Anderson was making. She had hoped that she could trust him enough to talk about it, but after he easily believed the false article and got mad at her about it, revealing Alison as the bail provider didn't seem like such a good idea now. "I, uh, I really don't know. He doesn't have many friends, so… gosh, maybe Regina? Who do you think it was?" she asked, mentally slapping herself in the face. She really didn't want to know who he thought it was; she actually didn't want to talk about it at all.

"It would have had to have been somebody with a weak sense of justice," he started, putting the horse pick away and picking up a curry comb. "Or maybe it was somebody who was scared to see him in jail. Knowing all the ties he has in this town, he probably threatened someone to bail him out."

_God, if you only knew how right you were,_ Nina thought. No, Alison didn't have a weak sense of justice, but she had been bullied into paying the pawn broker's bail on the reality of not getting paid for the next few weeks while he waited for his court date, or months possibly if it was a long trial. It was a major cause of concern and one of the many reasons Alison just didn't want to leave the apartment; she didn't want to be discovered as the girl who bailed a scoundrel out of prison.

"Do you know if there are any stores around here that sell paintings?" Nina asked suddenly, lingering on the low spirits her friend had sunken into. Anderson paused his work, thinking seriously before resuming.

"No, I don't think there are any. I know Mr. Gold's shop had an exclusive painter, but who wants to buy anything from him?" he asked with a chuckle. "You might get beaten by his cane just for browsing too long."

Nina laughed weakly at his attempt at humor, but it wasn't funny for her. It was reality. "Well, um, Alison was actually the exclusive painter for his store," she explained slowly, bringing his attention back off his horse and to her. "But since he went to jail, she doesn't want to work with him anymore."

"Oh."

"Why don't you try going to that new place that just opened up?"

Nina whirled at the new but familiar voice, having believed that she and Anderson were alone here despite being surrounded by horses. She looked confused as the muscly man walked in, carrying a bag over his shoulder. "John? What are you doing here?"

"I came here to visit Sven!" he said, throwing a small wave in Anderson's direction before walking to the end of the stables. Nina followed him, curious as she always was.

"Who's Sven?"

"My best friend, of course! I thought you were paying attention when I told you about him at the diner?"

"Well _sorry_, I was kinda busy working, you know," Nina pouted. "And when you were talking about him I thought you were talking about an actual _guy_, not a… moose."

She blinked when John stopped in front of the pen that was clearly not meant for the animal it housed. The brown coated creature nuzzled John in the arm, avoiding hitting the man with long antlers as an arm was wrapped around his neck. "Sven's not a moose! He's a reindeer!"

"…How did you become best friends with a reindeer? Wait, do we even have reindeer in Storybrooke?"

John just shrugged his shoulders and took a carrot from the bag he was carrying. "Don't know. One day I was just minding my business, just taking some groceries from the car to my cabin, you know?" He opened his bag and rummaged around for something inside while he continued the story. "I come back outside to get the rest and Sven's trying to get his head in the back seat to eat a bag of carrots. His antlers wouldn't fit and I felt bad for him, so I got the bag and let him have a few." He held out the orange vegetable from his tale and offered it to the creature that had practically been prancing in his stall ever since the blonde walked into the stables. Sven bit the carrot down the middle, leaving some for John and he took a bite from the remaining half. "We've been buddies ever since."

Nina watched the spectacle with hidden horror. "Oh that's gross…" she whispered.

"Did you say something?"

"Uh, nothing, it was nothing."

John held out the remaining part of the carrot towards her, silently urging her to take it. "Want some?"

"No! No, I'm fine," she said sheepishly, completely grossed out yet oddly charmed by the relationship the fisherman had with this rogue reindeer. She'd been so distracted by his tale and the sharing of the carrot that she completely forgot that he had made a suggestion to help her find a solution to Alison's situation. "What were you saying before? About some new place in town that just opened?"

John leaned against the door to Sven's stable and fed him another carrot, letting him have the whole thing this time after noting Nina's apparent dislike for them sharing. "There's this new store that opened across the street from the flower shop. It's a general store and it's not really well-known just yet, but the owner likes to sell local product."

It sounded nice, and while it wasn't exactly an art gallery, it was still a store. The emphasis on selling local product was what made Nina excited about the place. "Do you think the shop owner would work with Alison?" she asked, hopeful.

"I don't really know… he seems nice enough. Maybe you should talk with him first."

"Yeah but…" she paused, holding her chin in the palm of her hand, thinking. "Where is it again?"

"It's… you know what? Why don't I just take you there?" John asked. "I know right where it is and I'll introduce you to the owner. We can go right now if you want."

"Really?!" Her eyes lit up. This was the opportunity she needed to take. She wanted to help Alison so badly, after everything she had gone through to keep up the apartment when Nina didn't have a job. In Nina's opinion, Alison could get a job anywhere and be good at whatever it was that she did, but she knew that she wouldn't be happy. Painting was her passion, and the current situation just wasn't fair.

But she didn't forget where she was. She turned over to Anderson, who was still grooming Sitron, and he just smiled at her. "Go ahead. You need to help your lover, after all."

"Anderson!" Nina shouted, stomping her foot and glaring at her romantic interest, ready to tear the sideburns off his face.

"I'm _teasing_," he said, putting his hands up in defense. "Seriously though, go with him. I don't mind."

"Okay then… meanie," she said, sticking her tongue out at him and he laughed quietly to himself as she walked out of the stables with John. Knowing that she wouldn't be back to the ranch today, she helped John secure her bike to the roof of his jeep before buckling in to the shotgun seat. He pulled away, glancing back at the ranch in the side mirror as he got onto the main road that led back to town.

"He didn't have to say that," he grumbled as the ranch disappeared from view. Nina sighed, crossing her arms and slumping down in the seat, looking at him from the corner of eye.

"Yeah, well, you know when there are rumors running around town you should believe them instead of the people they're about," she pouted, completely disappointed at Anderson's teasing and initial refusal to trust her word, especially considering they were seeing each other and trying to form a relationship.

John grunted as he came to an intersection and stopped, looking both ways before pulling forward. "I thought that article was dumb the moment I read it," he admitted, keeping his eyes focused on the road. Nina perked up a little, bettering her posture with hesitant disbelief in her eyes. "Really?"

"Really. The whole thing was just terrible, and he didn't even get your ages right. How could you be working at a diner that sells alcohol when you're not even a legal adult? And the whole thing about you two being lovers," he rolled his eyes. "Psh. Maybe if he had written you guys as sisters I'd believe him, and I'd believe him even more if you didn't stare at every good-looking guy who walked into the diner."

Nina punched him playfully in the arm. "Gee, thanks."

"I'm just sayin'…"

"No, really John, thank you," she said, more sincerely this time. "Everyone's been giving me these weird looks and teasing me all week, and Alison's so upset about everything that she won't even get out of bed. You're the first person to actually not believe that stupid article, so… thank you."

He looked down at her, seeing the kind smile on her face and the shine in her bright teal eyes. He turned back to the road and smirked. "You're welcome," he said, happy to see her happy and realizing that, for once, they were having a serious conversation and they weren't teasing each other about something silly.

There was a silence that fell between them, and for some reason, John felt compelled to ask about Anderson, having noticed Nina's mood pick up once he walked into the stables. He wanted to give her advice, to tell her that maybe Anderson wasn't exactly the Prince Charming she thought he was when she met him at the winter festival, but he kept his thoughts to himself. He and Nina were friends, of course, but they weren't close enough for him to start giving her advice on love. So the silence continued.

And as usual, Nina broke it with her questions and impatience. "Why does Sven stay in the stables?" she asked quietly. "I mean, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to, it's your business, not mine, well, yours and Sven's business…"

"It's fine," he chuckled as the town came into view. "Some people like to hunt the deer in the forest, even though I think that's probably illegal, and I didn't want Sven to get in trouble. He's really a calm guy for a reindeer, and I just… I don't know, I feel like I have some kind of connection with him."

"Well, you both like carrots…" Nina laughed sheepishly.

"Yeah, but if something ever happened to him…" He shook his head, trying to get rid of the dark thought that could have become reality. "It took a bit of convincing, but I got Anderson to house him for me, at least until I can get a shed or something nice built for him at the cabin."

"Then you could see him any time you wanted!"

"That's what I was thinking," he smiled, pulling onto the main street of Storybrooke and passing by the library en route to their destination. "I guess I have a goal too, just like you and Alison wanting to get out of your apartment. It'll make things easier, that's for sure."

Nina's face reddened just at the thought of the new apartment. They were so close to getting it and now, thanks once again to Mr. Gold, they were being pushed back on their progression. As John pulled up to a parking spot and stopped the car, she hoped that this store would be answer they needed.

She stepped out of the jeep, closing the door behind her as John walked around to join her. The building they stood in front of wasn't very large for a general merchandise store, but it fit in comfortably with the businesses it was flanked by, not quite standing out aside from the large "Grand Opening Week" banner that hung beneath the store's main sign. Nina silently read the name to herself and peered in the window, noticing shelves upon shelves of product within and a healthy amount of shoppers browsing the wares. "I dunno… do you think this is the kind of place that would sell paintings?" she asked.

"We're not going to find out just standing here and staring at the front door!" John joked heartedly, clapping a strong hand to Nina's back to encourage her to walk inside. "Come on, let's go ask the owner if he'd be interested. The worst thing he could say is no."

* * *

"Think… think, think… remember… what was it?"

Alison stood in the center of the living room, staring down a canvas with such intensity that the blue in her eyes actually looked warm. Faint streaks of graphite had been etched into the material, marking strict but natural lines and curves, forming the foundations of a castle regal enough to stand on its own but homely enough to attract the kind eye. The design had come to her in a vision after her usual visit with Oliver and Markus and she all but raced home to vomit the image out of her mind before she completely lost all of the details.

She'd say that she did a rather good job of recreating it thus far, but the little details that she loved were aggravating her. What stones were used in the walls surrounding the castle itself? What shapes were the roofs of the turrets? There were gates, yes, she remembered that, but there was a design on them that she couldn't quite get right. So much detail was lost in such a short amount of time and the original vision had been perfect.

Right now her primary concern were the shields on the turrets. Every castle belonged to a kingdom, and every kingdom had its crest. In the vision, she had seen it but didn't pay attention to what it was, and now she was kicking herself for it.

"It wasn't intimidating…" she muttered, pouting at the sketch in front of her. There was an urge just to draw a snowman in the middle of the shield and be done with it, but it wouldn't be right in the least. She closed her eyes, searching her memories and trying to bring the vision back.

Fresh mountain air with the scent of pine and the salty ocean, a soft wind blowing against a sturdy structure, rattling the wooden shutters against a triangular window. Banners hung from the protective wall swayed in the breeze and the two turrets on each side of the bridge stood vigilant, bearing a crest with pride. The golden symbol of this kingdom, it was-

Gone. Lost to the dark depths of her imagination with all her other good ideas as she listened to Nina fumble with the lock outside. She fell back to the couch, pressing the eraser of her pencil against her forehead in a weak attempt to bring the vision back as Nina walked in.

"Hey Ali!" she called, skipping in to the apartment and closing the door behind her. She saw her friend's irritated face and grimaced, knowing exactly what had happened. "Ooh, you just lost something, didn't you?"

Alison gave her a weak smile and threw her pencil to the floor. "It'll come back to me," she said, trying to be positive despite being severely disappointed. "At least I hope it does."

"You'll think of something!" Nina grinned. She glanced at the clock, feeling a little impatient, rocking on her heels as Alison mulled in the living room. "Maybe you'll remember it if we go outside for a bit?"

"No thank you." Alison's words were sharp and bitter, her soft smile quickly deepening into a frown. "You know, I almost made it to the orphanage today without someone yelling at me for being a pervert."

"And _I_ got labeled as jailbait on my way to the ranch. It's not true, so it doesn't bother me." Nina shrugged knowing that her comparison wouldn't make Alison feel any better.

And it seemed to make her feel worse because the blonde just gave her the most desperate of looks. "Nina, when I walked in to see Oliver and Markus one of the caretakers had adoption papers ready for me to sign!" she cried. "I can't walk ten feet outside of the building without someone saying something or giving me a nasty look for something I didn't do!"

"I know you really don't want to go out until this whole thing blows over," Nina started, cautious to avoid upsetting Alison further. "And I know things are really rough right now with Mr. Gold, but I have something I really want to show you and it might make things a little bit better."

Alison covered her eyes with the back of her forearm, wanting desperately to get lost in the vision of her art instead of talking about this right now. "How could anything make this better?"

Nina huffed, holding out her arms and looking around for some kind of answer that would satisfy the blonde without spoiling the surprise. "I don't know, Ali. You just have to trust me."

Uncovering her eyes, Alison peeked at Nina, her wide smile pure and true… she wasn't lying. She really had something that she wanted to show, and no matter how degrading it might have been to be out in public right now, Alison couldn't deny her friend when she got like this. Sighing, she stood, tucked her long braid down the front of her sweater and pulled her hood up over her head. "Let's get this over with."

"Okay! John's got the car running, so-"

"Wait, what? Nina, you didn't say anything about-"

Nina rolled her eyes and took Alison by the wrist, dragging her out the door and down the stairs. "_Relax_. He's fine. He knows that the article was one big lie and he's been helping me all day."

Alison scrunched her nose as they walked outside. "I thought you were supposed to be with Anderson?"

It didn't go unnoticed by the blonde that the younger girl was avoiding her question and focused instead on getting her into the back seat of the Jeep, climbing once again into the front passenger's seat. She turned around, hitting John in the arm to do the same. "John, this is my roommate, Alison. Ali, this is the guy who saved the camera when I… almost dropped it last month…" Her voice trailed off, realizing that it probably wasn't the best way to introduce the man, but Alison took it for what it was worth and shook John's hand when he offered it to her. "It's nice to meet you," she said meekly, weary of the stranger but trusting Nina's judgment.

He nodded back at her, noting the chill touch of her skin but not bothering to comment on it, only turning up the heat in the vehicle to help warm her up in spite of her protest not to when she noticed what he was doing. As he pulled away from the apartment, Alison oddly felt like some sort of prisoner being taken to a secret location with the silence and knowing looks being exchanged between the two up front. "Anyone mind telling me where we're going?" she asked sheepishly.

Nina gave John another look and for a moment Alison wasn't sure she wanted to know. Nina poked her head around the seat again, smiling wide. "John told me about this great store he found and we wanted to show you!"

"…That's it?" Alison's brows furrowed and Nina blinked at her. "You forced me out of the apartment just to go shopping?"

"No, but it's… ooh, you'll see when we get there! I promise you won't regret it."

"Sure. Whatever you say."

When John pulled the jeep to a stop in front of the store, Alison climbed out and stared at the name painted across the building's exterior. John and Nina flanked her sides, exchanging knowing grins as she raised a brow as she read it out loud.

"Birch's General Supply and Consignment." She tilted her head, musing at the grand opening signs and noting nothing particularly special about the place just from looking in through the window. "Is it really that great?"

Nina marched forward, looping her arm in her friend's and pulling her hood off as she dragged her through the front door. "Oh, come on grumpy-butt, just look inside for a few minutes, okay? Sheesh."

The interior of the store was quite plain, but it was bigger than it looked from the outside and boy was it stocked with merchandise. Parts of the store were sectioned off by signs hanging from the ceiling to let shoppers know what was in each area. The place had everything from "Seasonal Wear" to "Office Supplies" and, interestingly enough, "Local Goods." It seemed homey without being intimidating, and Alison agreed that it was a very nice place, but at this hour when the winter sun was beginning to dip below the skyline, the shop didn't seem to have many visitors.

"Yoo-hoo!"

She blinked with a start, not expecting anyone else to be there aside from them and she turned to the direction of the voice, spotting a large, middle-aged man sitting behind a service counter with a big friendly smile on his face. He waved with one hand, wiggling his fingers in greeting. "Welcome to Birch's! We have half-off on all school supplies, summer wear, and with every purchase I'll throw in a bottle of complimentary carrot juice!"

He looked at Alison, expecting her to say something, but she was either too shy or dumbstruck to even get the words out. When he spotted Nina and John walking up behind her he waved to them as well. "Yoo-hoo! Good to see you again!"

"You too!" Nina smiled. She put a hand on Alison's back, urging her to walk closer to the friendly, yet large, and somewhat intimidating, shop owner. "Mr. Birch, this is the friend I was telling you about earlier!"

If it were possible, Mr. Birch's smile grew wider in spite of the questioning glare the blonde gave to her younger friend. "Ah! You are the painter, ya?" he asked.

"Ya… I-I mean…" she shook her head, embarrassed at picking up the man's Scandinavian accent by mistake. "Yes, I'm a painter. My name is Alison Vinter."

"Robert Birch!" He held out a hand and shook hers, dwarfing her pale fingers in his enormous palm but gentle about his touch to avoid hurting the girl. "Nina told me that you were looking for a new business partner, ya?"

She nodded, again harshly reminded of the situation Mr. Gold had caused for her. "Yes. My current business partner is a little… crooked," she said as gently as possible but wanting desperately to use a stronger word to describe the man. "I'm not really known well enough to sell my paintings on my own just yet."

Mr. Birch studied her, saw the uncertainty in her eyes and in the way she held herself. She seemed unsteady but resilient; though a strong wind would knock her down, she'd get up even if she knew she couldn't stand against it. "You have a lot of passion for what you do," he observed, bringing a small smirk out of her. "And I love having locally made products in the store. Ms. Vinter, I'd be willing to help you sell your paintings if you'd like."

Her shoulders dropped held tension and a warm smile spread wide across her face. Behind her, John and Nina exchanged a shared accomplished look, watching Alison's confidence growing as her posture suddenly straightened and her hands, which had been clasped together ever so tightly, relaxed and fell to her sides.

"I'd…" she hesitated for a moment until her heart swelled with excitement. "I would really like that, yes. Thank you, Mr. Birch." She paused and her brows lowered. A business partner was nice, but they were called business partners for a reason. The partnership didn't work unless there was some sort of benefit for both parties involved; she knew this all too well from her harsh lessons with Mr. Gold. "Of course I don't expect you to sell my paintings for free… I don't mean to be so pushy right at the start, but how would you like to split the profits?"

The silence that followed her question hung on such still air that one could hear the hearts beating in the room. Mr. Birch contemplated the question, resting his hands on the counter and pressing his fingertips together. "Hmm… I believe a thirty-seventy split would be fair."

And in that moment Alison felt her confidence dwindle. She should have known better than to believe a new business partner, one that just met her only a few minutes ago, would give her a better split on the profits than her previous partner who had manipulated her for so long. All merchandisers were the same, taking the credit and money for themselves while the providers wallowed in their poverty.

She was about to refuse the business offer when Birch held up his hand, stopping her before she could even say anything. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make it sound that way. The seventy percent is in your favor, dear."

Alison heard Nina gasping behind her and suddenly all the little shattered pieces of her confidence were coming back together. "Really?" she breathed, not able to believe him.

But his polite nod reaffirmed his word. "I'm not the one paying for the supplies or creating the artwork," he explained. "You are. You deserve the right to support yourself and your craft. I'd be more than happy to sell your work, Ms. Vinter."

"Th-Thank you, I…" She glanced back at Nina, finding her friend with tears in her eyes and Alison felt herself on the verge of the same. Blinking them away, she stepped forward and shook Mr. Birch's hand again, sealing the deal and solidifying the partnership. "I can't wait to get started!"

"This is such a happy day!" he exclaimed. "As a commemoration of our new business contract, please accept this quart of lutefisk so you can remember the warm feelies!" Alison blinked, not entirely convinced he was serious until he shoved a jar of raw, aged fish into her hands. She stuttered out a reluctant thank you as John and Nina stifled their laughs behind her. Birch may have a few peculiar traits, but he meant well, even if his idea of a gift wasn't exactly what others expected.

They stayed in the store for a few minutes longer; Alison hashing out the gritty little details of their partnership (of which there were thankfully very few) and spending the rest of the time in casual conversation with her friends and Birch. It was dark by the time they left, but the time they spent talking inside made Alison feel relieved for the first time in days and her worries about the terrible newspaper article, as well as her troubles with Mr. Gold, nearly vanished.

"I'm so happy for you Ali! See, wasn't this worth the visit?" Nina asked, nearly tackling her friend in a hug on the way to the car.

"W-Watch it!" Alison stumbled, clinging to the jar of fish for dear life, unwilling to let the ungodly horrible contents escape. When she made sure she had it under control she smiled, looking between Nina and John. "Thank you guys. This is really going to change our lives," she said, focusing on Nina. So long as she kept painting and her paintings sold, she would have nothing to worry about. The difference between her profits from Mr. Gold and her proposed profits from Mr. Birch was so vast that her way of living before would seem like a far-off memory of a nightmare in a few weeks' time. They would _never_ have their power shut off again, they would always be able to pay their rent, and realistically, they were even closer to a new apartment than they realized. "I don't know how I can even repay you guys," she smiled.

"Weeell…" Nina leaned over to her, a wide and goofy smile on her face. "We haven't eaten yet!" she giggled, motioning over to John. "Maybe you could treat your best friends to dinner at Granny's?"

John scratched the back of his head, feeling bad at the idea of someone he just met paying for his meal, but Alison's kind laughter soothed his worries. "It's the least I could do!"

"Woohoo! Dinner on Ali to celebrate a new beginning!" Nina turned to the jeep, spying the vacant driver's seat and turning back to John with puppy-dog eyes. "Can I drive?"

"NO." He didn't realize at first that his word was backed up by Alison's and she shook her head, muttering "Nina, really…" as the redhead quickly moved on from her disappointment to claim shotgun.

"How do you keep up with her?" John asked as they watched Nina scramble into her preferred seat. Alison merely shrugged, panicking for a moment when her younger friend started pressing buttons on the steering wheel and calming when she realized that the car wasn't even running.

"I just go along with it. It's-"

BEEEEP!

"It's easier that way," she grimaced, catching Nina's I-didn't-do-it grin through the window. "I don't know how, but she's just got this habit of bringing the best out of people without even trying and I admire her for that."

John smirked, oddly feeling the same way despite not knowing the redhead for nearly as long as her roommate. Regardless, she was the one who was able to make things happen. She had gone out in search for a place for Alison to sell her paintings, had gotten John involved, and even though he hadn't spent much time with the blonde, he could already see the beginnings of a friendship forming between the three of them.

As they drove to Granny's, Alison sat in the back seat contemplating her "commemorative gift."

"Want some lutefisk, John?" she teased.

"No! No thanks, I'm good."

Nina spun around in her seat. "Is it really that bad?"

"Nina, if I didn't have any respect for John I'd open the jar right now and he wouldn't be able to get the smell out of his interior for months."

"Ew."

"Yeah, it's _that_ bad."

And it sparked an idea between the two of them, but only one would actually suggest it.

"You know Ali, I think I know someone who would really _love_ lutefisk."

Alison couldn't stop the sly, mischievous smirk rising from the corner of her mouth. She held onto the jar tighter and suddenly her reluctant gift turned into her most prized possession.

She wondered how long it would take for Mr. Gold to get the smell of aged fish out of a pile of antique rugs.


	13. The Ties That Bind

The wind was howling down main street that afternoon, lashing faces with unforgiving cold and steeling the nerves of a girl who stood to brave it, standing determined against the mighty force. She breathed in, opening her blue eyes to the door in front of her, and exhaled.

"You can do this." A hand gently touched her shoulder, then firmed with the next words. "Just go in, tell him and leave. That's all you need to do."

Blue eyes peered over her shoulder, looking to the person who was giving the encouragement. "You know you're coming with me, right?"

"Ah, um, well, I don't really need to, I mean, you're fine talking to him alone, so…"

A messy head of blonde shook in disbelief and she turned around, putting her back to the door to face the other woman. "_Nina_."

"Okay, okay, fine!" The redhead huffed, pouting when the blonde faced the door again. "But I'm only here for moral support! Remember that!"

And that was just fine with Alison. She was the one who started this mess, so she'd be one to finish it. With another steadying breath, she opened the door to Mr. Gold's pawnshop.

As usual, the stingy shop owner was absent from the front counter, but instead of agitating Alison it actually pleased her for once. She wasn't quite ready to face him just yet, and as Nina perused the wares as she usually did whenever they came into the store, Alison took the time to gather her thoughts and muster up her courage. This was it; today was the day she threw away her old life of living in this man's shadow.

Her eyes snapped to the portrait behind the counter… oh how she had regretted the decision to ever try and sell it in the first place. She stared at the familiar brushstrokes and pigments, nearly crying out as the sound of a canvas being torn echoed through her mind. The quaint and peaceful kingdom had been crushed so swiftly and mercilessly that her pain was renewed at every sight of a walking cane. She let it steel her nerves for what she was about to do.

"Ali? Ali, come over here!" And in that brief moment, Nina was able to bring down her carefully crafted walls with the simple mention of her name. Whatever nerves she felt, or whatever anxieties she had about being in this store, Nina didn't show them, and she did it so effortlessly that Alison briefly grew jealous of her ability to step into unknowing situations without so much as a flinch.

She broke her gaze from the painting and joined her friend at the jewelry display, noticing that the elaborate golden piece of metal which had caught her eye in a previous visit was still available for purchase. She lingered on it a moment before Nina picked up something else on the counter. "Look at this," she breathed, eyes twinkling in the shine of what she held.

It was a simple thing, really, but it was bold and regal. A single piece of black material akin to velvet served as a necklace to hold a shining gold pendant in its center. The pendant was marked with an outline of a simple flower that gave Alison pause. The symbol was eerily similar to the shape of the center of the other golden piece that she was slowly growing fond of, guessing now that it was truly a tiara and not some wall art that she would readily use to decorate a living space with.

Nina giggled as she held the pendant up to the light. "Plain, simple, and a little daring," she said of the accessory. "Kind of like me, don't you think?"

"Oh, you are _far_ from plain and simple." Alison rolled her eyes, getting a snarky look in return for the action. "A hyperactive girl who gets excited over everything, talks to every stranger she meets and barely avoids trouble on a daily basis but somehow manages to find time in her crazy life to slow down and help her friends. Nina, you are the complete opposite of plain and simple."

"Well when you say it like _that_ you make me sound like a superhero."

"Oh, well now you're just being pompous," the blonde teased. Nina looked at her, stumped, but smiled anyway.

"I don't know what that means but I'm taking that as a compliment too!"

Alison was about to explain when she heard the telltale sound of something striking the floorboards in the back room of the store. She caught Nina's panicked look and the younger girl set the necklace down gently before scurrying off to the opposite side of the showroom, pretending to look interested in something while Alison squared her shoulders.

The man came out from the back room looking quite poised, not at all surprised at the presence of the two roommates mulling about the store. "Back so soon, Dearie?" he asked, smiling at Alison as she approached the counter. "I already paid your bail money back twice now; surely there is nothing more I can do for you right now until something else sells." He spied Nina in the far corner of the shop. "Or are you here to buy something nice for your girlfriend over there?"

"That article was fake," Alison snapped, placing her hands firmly on the counter. "If you read the newspaper at all this week you'd know that."

He shrugged, not at all disappointed that his mention of the tabloid didn't faze her. "Ah yes, it was a good thing they caught Mr. Torvik forging the interview, though it doesn't seem to matter now that Ms. Blanchard's stolen your spotlight as the town's biggest scandal," he chuckled, mentioning the recent rumors of the school teacher having a love affair with a married man. Just like the article on the two roommates, this recent rumor had spread like wildfire and suddenly Mary-Margaret was the target of everyone's ire save for the select few who believed she had been misguided. Alison was thankful that the attention had been taken away from her and Nina, but she sympathized with Mary-Margaret after spending a week as Storybrooke's most disgraceful resident.

"Though it seems the reporters won't rest until they find out who my mysterious bail provider is," he said, snapping her attention back to him and stoking her anger. "Or until I'm in jail. Whichever happens first, I suppose." He stopped, noting the tense muscles in Alison's shoulders and the way her jaw was clenched. Her fingers pressed the counter so hard that the tips were white and he leaned back cautiously. "What are you doing here, Ms. Vinter? Clearly you'd rather be elsewhere."

He read her like a book. He always had, and it frustrated her now because she didn't know if she was just that easy to figure out or if he was really that perceptive. He had managed to exploit her feelings for her work and for her living conditions and use them to his advantage in their deals. He had been cruel and unforgiving, not just to her but to her best friend, the one person who had picked her up after every exhausting conversation that took place in this store. Even now, as she squared off against the man with the golden cane, she could feel Nina looking over her shoulder, silently giving her the strength she needed to face him one last time.

"I want to end our partnership," she stated boldly, unwavering in her claim. She said nothing more and stared him straight in the eye. Any doubts that entered her mind were quickly cast aside as the painting he stood in front of reminded her of why this string of bad business had to end.

The only sign that he had been surprised at the statement were his raised brows and a slightly gaping mouth. If it weren't for the current circumstances, he might have been offended at the sudden breakup proposal. "I suppose I would like to know why."

His tone bordered on disappointment and she had to stop herself from feeling bad. He was taking most of her profits and giving hardly anything in return; he was a scoundrel, but as strong as she felt right now, she couldn't just throw that accusation in his face. "I can't do this anymore," she admitted, avoiding all the reasons she wanted to give but summing them up kindly. "With you out on bail and people trying to find out who paid it for you… everything's a mess right now and I can't live if nothing sells." She pointed to several of her other paintings that still hung on the wall for display, further emphasizing her point. "I have to sell them somewhere and right now it can't be here."

"Well, I must say that I'm rather… displeased that after all this time we've worked together, one bad situation has made you want to end our partnership." She had expected him to be angry, but his tone was surprisingly gentle. She wasn't aware of it, but their business relationship had lasted for twenty-eight years; his feelings about this were quite genuine.

He squared his cane beneath his palms and looked at her, this time with kinder eyes and not the steely ones she'd been used to avoiding whenever their deals turned to arguments. "However, I understand your reasoning and respect your feelings on the matter. Though of course, you understand that by backing out of our partnership, you forfeit whatever profits you might have gained on your current stock."

Alison's sigh was soft in spite of being overcome by what seemed to be a tsunami of relief. He hadn't taken anything personal, he didn't threaten her with some kind of clause to keep her in the partnership; he would only take what little of her share would be on the three remaining paintings she had in his store, and that was oddly fine by her. She wanted to turn and leave, satisfied with what had happened here, when he held a hand out and called to her.

"Ah, just one more thing, Ms. Vinter. I know that we haven't gotten along for most of this venture and I wanted to make it up to you."

"Really?" Her voice was so full of skepticism that it tarried on humor. "I'm sorry, but where did that come from? Every time I talk to you, you're always working some kind of deal or contract into things."

And for the first time, Mr. Gold was the one to tear his gaze away from Alison. He thought upon his reasons in silence, avoiding her until he came up with a reasonable answer. "I have lost something very important to me," he admitted, "and if things go my way, I am very close to getting it back. So to commemorate our time together, I'd like to give something back to you as well."

_I want my money._ The thought sprang up so fast in Alison's head that she blushed from such a base desire.

Mr. Gold held out a hand, sweeping an open palm in the air to motion all around the store. "I will let you take any one thing from the shop for free; no strings attached."

Alison spun around, meeting Nina's excited eyes. _Anything_ in the store could be theirs: there was an antique, middle-eastern inspired lamp that looked interesting, or there was a neat collection of medieval swords that Alison had no interest in, but hey, she could take anything, including that elaborate golden piece that she was convinced was a crown. She followed Nina's gaze, wondering if the redhead had been musing over the availability of Mr. Gold's walking cane as their final prize, when she realized what she had truly been looking at. She saw it and she knew what she wanted.

The painting of the kingdom in the fjord had been her greatest piece and her biggest regret. It had been the product of countless hours agonizing over minute details and sweeping colors… and it had also been the object of an equal amount of pain. Once again, the sound of the canvas ripping plagued her mind and she shuddered against the torturous noise. The portrait that had once brought her joy now made her wince in its presence, reminding her just how cruel one person could be and that no one could be trusted.

"So Ms. Vinter? Have you decided?"

A small smirk crept on her face when she came to her decision. "Yeah, I have." Without another word, she walked over to the jewelry display and lingered her over the tiara one more time, spotting her reflection in its golden shine.

She turned around, holding up the black necklace with the gold pendant instead. "I choose this."

"Alison, wait," Nina interrupted, finding her voice and feeling as though her friend was making a big mistake. "What about the painting? You worked so hard on it… you paid for the repairs too, and I know you want it, so why-"

She was cut off as Alison took hold of her wrist and placed the necklace into her open palm. "Because life's too short to get stuck on the memories that painting brings me. I'm going to paint more amazing pictures," she said, smiling when Nina recognized the familiar words, "and I'm going to keep putting my all in every portrait. I'm painting new memories thanks to you."

Nina closed her hand around the pendant, clutching it tightly as it symbolized the end of a dark period of their lives. Things were completely different now since the day Mr. Gold had stabbed the fjord painting: Nina was working, Alison was reluctantly gaining confidence in herself and their ties to the greedy pawnbroker had mostly been severed save for a few strings that were left to be undone.

She looked back at the framed piece hanging on the wall behind the counter, briefly reminiscing the days after it had been pierced and subsequently broken her best friend. Sure, Alison didn't want it now, but perhaps somewhere down the line… "What are you going to do with the fjord painting? Sell it?" she asked pointedly to the pawnbroker, already formulating an improvised plan to escape with the thing if he had the intent to destroy it again.

He merely shrugged and took a glance at it as he made a split second decision. "I suppose I'll just keep it here, since it is mine after all," he stabbed, reminding them of the previous contract that had resulted in a month-long blackout in their home. "And besides, if for some reason you should find your current business partner inadequate, it'd be nice to have a bargaining chip on the table already when you come crawling back to me."

"You're kidding me…"

Alison's voice was low and on the edge of something else, not unlike when she negotiated his early release from prison. Her eyes were clear, a sharp bright blue that aimed to pierce but softened enough to clear her intent. "If you think you can threaten me with that, then you're wrong," she snapped.

This confident tone was new to Nina and she looked at her roommate in wonder. Just moments ago she was her usual self, a little meek, completely nervous about breaking her ties with Gold and her hands had been in her pockets or pressing hard against a surface for most of the conversation. Now her posture straightened, her hands were relaxed at her sides and her eyes narrowed. For a moment it looked like Alison was a completely different person entirely as she continued her cadence.

"After everything you've put us through, you think threatening me with _that_," she jabbed a finger at the painting, "would make me bend to your contracts? Mr. Gold, I've worked with you for so long that I've finally learned that our relationship wasn't a partnership; it was one giant self-serving contract for your benefit and I'd rather be out on the street than have to work with you again."

She turned and headed towards the door before the flame ignited in her heart could truly blaze, but she stopped before she made it far, halted by one final thought. "You may owe me a favor, but I'm done making deals with you."

Inspired by the skill and poise of her friend, Nina marched right up to the counter, stared Mr. Gold in the eyes, and rang the service bell with a smirk before pivoting on her heel and heading towards the exit.

"I hope I never see you two again," the pawnbroker scowled, gripping his cane tighter as he watched the redhead kick a pile of antique rugs out of spite before heading out the door.

Alison stood outside, letting the cool air relieve her emotions as she waited for Nina to catch up. She didn't have to wait long as the redhead came bounding out of the store with a wide smile on her face, barely managing to grab Alison's wrist and drag her along as she walked past her. "Okay Ali, time to go," she said through the clenched teeth of her grin, glancing back at the shop.

The blonde stumbled at Nina's hasty stride and she looked back as well. "I know you don't want to stay around here any longer than you have to," Alison started, trying to plead her friend to slow down so she'd have a chance to gather her thoughts aftre what just happened, "but it's not like he's going to come after us."

"…He might."

"Nina, what are you talki-" She blinked when a previous conversation sprang to mind, and suddenly Alison found herself panicking. "You didn't. Nina, please tell me you didn't."

"We should probably walk a little faster…"

"NINA!" Alison screamed as they both broke out into a full-on sprint down the main street of town, turning at an intersection just so they could get out of view of the pawn shop. "I thought we talked about this?!"

"Yeah, I know, but I couldn't help myself!" Nina laughed, her grin growing wider with the distance they covered. Her braided pigtails bounced as they ran and her eyes sparkled with held back laughter. "I can just imagine his face when he finds out where the stink is coming from! Operation: Lutefisk is a success!"

They trotted down to a casual walking pace to catch their breath and by the time Alison got air into her lungs she broke out into a similar wide grin. "If he decides to take it out on us, the money's coming out of _your_ paycheck," she warned. "He's gonna know that it was us."

"No he won't! How many people in town do you know that actually _eats_ lutefisk? Besides, if he ends up getting real angry about it, there's nothing he can do; he's out on bail, remember?"

"I guess you're right… how did you manage to sneak it in without him noticing?" Alison asked, now that the threat of danger had passed and they weren't being chased down by an angry shop owner, she couldn't help but be intrigued by the methods of her friend's hijinks. Really, she'd been thinking about it all week long and hadn't been able to come up with a plan to spring the lutefisk in the shop without Mr. Gold smelling it while they were in there.

Nina laughed to herself, rubbing her chin with the satisfaction of a job well done. "It was pretty easy, actually. I just unscrewed the top of the lid just enough so it was loose and sat it up in the rugs before Mr. Gold came out to talk to us. Before I left I just kicked the pile to knock it over. The juice inside is going to drip out slow, but if he doesn't notice the stink today…" she stifled another giggle. "Oh boy is he gonna smell it tomorrow!"

Alison chuckled to herself at the master plan, so simple in execution that her complex mind refused to even formulate the idea. "The responsible part of me wants to scold you," she said, putting her arm around Nina's shoulders and drawing her in for a sort of half hug, "but I really want to congratulate you. That was genius."

Nina hugged her back. "Hey, I should be congratulating _you_! You're finally free from that scumbag!"

"And I did it on my own terms, just like I said I would," Alison reminded with a wink. "I can't believe he actually gave us something for free though. I was pretty sure that he didn't understand the concept of actually giving things away without making people pay for it."

Nina pulled the necklace from her pocket and held it up for the both of them to stare at the gold pendant glinting in the sunlight. Staring harder at the symbol in the center, she brought the pendant back down and ran over the raised design with her thumb. "What do you think it means?" she asked, curious at the origin of the symbol.

"Probably nothing," Alison shrugged, dismissing any significance with the piece while completely able to admire its beauty. "That little flower could have just as easily been a butterfly or something."

"I guess so… it'd be pretty neat if it meant something though."

Truthfully, Alison had wanted it to mean something, and if it didn't, then she would make it mean something. The little necklace, for the moment, was a symbol of victory and freedom against Mr. Gold, and she'd be damned to forget it any time soon.

As they walked she realized that they were instinctually heading home, though in a roundabout way to avoid Mr. Gold just in case he discovered Nina's "gift" a little early. The afternoon was young and she had plenty of work to keep her busy, but her younger friend had one of her precious days off, and she knew she'd have some kind of plan to make it worthwhile. "So what are you up to for the rest of the day?" she asked.

Nina didn't answer her right away, lost in her own thoughts and the shine of the pendant before she put it back in her pocket. "I, uh… I have a date."

"Oh, really? So you two are finally official?"

"W-Well, it's not a "date" date…" she mumbled, avoiding her friend's questioning look while trying, and failing, to keep her blush down. Alison raised a brow at her answer, a sly smile spreading subtly across her face.

"You said the same thing last time."

"Did I?" Nina stomped her foot at Alison's nod, frustrated. "But it's still not really a date! I mean… he didn't really say that it was a date, he just wanted to meet for lunch…"

"It's a date."

"Lunch isn't a date!"

Alison rolled her eyes as she walked up to the front door of their apartment building. "Okay, if he pays, then it's a date. If he doesn't, then he's just a lousy boyfriend."

"Alison! Stop teasing me!" Nina pouted, crossing her arms as the blonde tossed her braid over her shoulder smugly. "And really, what would _you_ know about dating? You've never gone out with anybody!"

The accusation didn't even seem to faze her and she stood in the doorway, still smiling. "That's true, but I am three years older _and_ three years wiser. I know better."

"Three years wiser my a- you are such a stinker, you know that?" Nina asked, sending Alison into a fit of giggles. "You are such a jar of lutefisk!"

"Whatever you say, Nina. Have fun on your date!"

The redhead shook her head as her roommate retreated inside, but a smile remained on her face despite the teasing. _When did she get so confident? _It was a usual thing for the roommates to tease each other, but it was rare when Alison actually initiated it on purpose. Between this short exchange and the way the blonde had dealt with Mr. Gold without a single misstep, Nina couldn't help but feel proud of her.

_I must be rubbing off on her_, she thought to herself as she glanced at the clock tower.

* * *

"You did _what_?!"

Nina giggled, crossing her arms triumphantly and leaning back into the seat of their booth. "I sprang the lutefisk on him like I said I would! Did you know that he tried to threaten us with the painting _again_? I had to get back at him somehow, and… oh, come on, John! Don't give me that look! You look just like Alison when you do that!"

The blonde man sitting across from her was giving her a no-nonsense stare as he guzzled down the rest of his soft drink. "I'm just worried. I mean it's great that you guys aren't working with him anymore, but he has a reputation for taking it out on people who have done something wrong to him. Hopefully he doesn't realize it was you."

"Well… whatever. Every time I go in there he's always yelling at me not to touch anything because everything is priceless, so if it doesn't cost anything it shouldn't be a big deal if something gets damaged, right?"

He stared at her, mouth parted slightly in silence and she just stared right back. "What?" she asked.

"Nina, priceless means that something's worth so much that a price can't be put on it."

"Oh… uh-oh."

John leaned on the table with his forearms, smiling wide when the realization dawned on Nina. When she started looking around, possibly searching for Mr. Gold, he held his hands out to her to get her attention. "Hey! Hey, calm down. He probably doesn't know that it was you, and even if he finds out he's got bigger things to worry about. His trial is coming up soon."

She slumped down in her seat, staring at the table and wondering if she just messed everything up again with the mostly harmless prank. "I guess you're right…" Holding her hands together, she looked up from the spot on the table to look at him with wide hopeful eyes. "But it was a good prank, right?"

"Oh yeah, definitely!" he agreed, putting a smile back on Nina's face. "He's going to smell that for weeks!" They sat and laughed, easing Nina out of her troubles and worry when John spotted the clock and noted the time. He stood up casually and offered one last reassuring smile to the redhead. "I gotta get back to work," he said. "Lunch break's over. You working tomorrow morning?"

She nodded, crossing her arms on the table, suddenly chilled by the absence of his warmth in the seat across from her. "Bright and early, as always!"

"Alright! I'll see you tomorrow then!" He turned to leave and stopped, doubling back and taking a slip of paper off the table. "And I'll take care of this," he said, holding up the bill.

He missed Nina's blush when he went to go pay at the register and she held her cheeks in an attempt to hide it when he waved at her before he left. It brought up the conversation she had with Alison earlier that afternoon.

_He… he paid, so that was a date… right? Oh my God…_

The blush deepened and she bit her lip with a smile, practically glowing with her mental image of hearts falling from the ceiling and a six-string quartet playing sappy love music in her ears. She'd never felt this way about anyone before, not even Anderson, whom she believed up until last week was her true love. His initial refusal to believe her word about the false newspaper article had led her to distrust him, and his lack of effort in trying to form a relationship just frustrated her. When she finally decided to stop seeing him she didn't feel upset, but severely disappointed.

John had been there for her when she felt as though she was bothering Alison too much with talk about love and what it was. Her conversations with him had been pleasant, and though they still ended up teasing each other for something, it wasn't to annoy each other, but to poke fun at what made them different. He'd given her insight on things that she'd never dream to think about and she discovered things about herself that she never knew, like how she felt more energetic when she was outside and, surprisingly, that she was quite an amateur photographer when she wasn't in danger of dropping the camera somewhere unforgiving.

Despite all that, she wouldn't say that she and John were dating… but it was hard for her to deny that they were seeing each other.

"Looks like someone's a little lovesick."

Nina shook her head, snapping out of her daydream and looking up to find who belonged to the voice. Ruby smiled wide and set down a mug of hot cocoa with whipped cream on her table. "He bought this for you before he left. I told you he liked you!" She sighed as Nina eyed her favorite drink, completely jealous of the simple redheaded girl. "Funny, I thought you'd go for more of a prim and proper man."

Nina giggled, taking a flick of whipped cream off the top of the peak and licking it off her finger. "No, that's more of Alison's type… I think. Uh, but me and John aren't dating, we're just-"

"I know, I know! But one of these days you're actually going to admit it out loud, and I can't wait until you do so I can start teasing you about your boyfriend!"

"You know, between you, Ali and John all teasing me, it's kind of surprising that I don't have self-esteem issues," Nina said, drumming her fingers on the table as Ruby walked away with a self-satisfactory smile. Alone once more, she enjoyed the rare silence and sipped her drink slowly, allowing the warmth to take the chill out of her from the dying winter that dared enter the diner. She closed her eyes, letting the sweet flavor dance on her taste buds, and when she opened her eyes again she was surprised to find that she had guests in her booth.

"Emma? Henry? When did you guys get here?!"

"We just came in a few minutes ago," Emma said, pausing to take a sip from her own mug of hot chocolate. "Henry saw you sitting alone and he wanted to come over and say hi." She looked down at the young boy rummaging through his backpack and quickly caught Nina's eyes. "Sorry about this," she whispered, and before Nina could question her, Henry picked his head up and looked at the edge of the table where a metal shaker was sitting.

He reached over and picked it up, setting it down next to Nina's mug as a silent invitation for her to use it before he went back to searching through his bag. Unsure of what was in the shaker, Nina looked to their drinks for some sort of clue and saw light brown peppered on top of white clouds of whipped cream.

It was cinnamon. It had to be.

Teal eyes went wide and she shook her head at Emma while placing a hand over her mug, sliding it protectively closer to herself and mouthing the word "no." Emma simply shrugged, jumping slightly when Henry dropped a leather-bound book on the table with a thud.

"Emma and I were talking," he started, gripping the sides of the book as he looked at the familiar lettering on the cover. "We want to let you in on Operation: Cobra."

"Operation… Cobra?" Nina repeated, throwing her confusion at Emma, who gave no answer but a defeated nod. Assuming that it was one of Henry's games, or perhaps part of his therapy with Dr. Hopper, she decided to play along. "What is it?"

"I think everyone in Storybrooke is cursed," he whispered, eyeing the other patrons in the diner to make sure they weren't listening in to their conversation. "The Evil Queen cursed the kingdoms of the Enchanted Forest to forget who they are and she sent them all here."

"W-Wait, the Evil Queen?" Nina asked, looking between Henry and Emma. "Like from Snow White? That Evil Queen?"

Henry shrugged like what he said was no big deal. "She's my mom."

Nina, still in apparent confusion despite trying to play along with Henry's game, drew out a sigh from Emma and she leaned forward, keeping her voice quiet as well. "Henry thinks the Evil Queen is Regina and that everyone here is a fairy tale character. Operation: Cobra is a codename for when we talk about the curse," she explained, raising her brow in a silent attempt to have Nina keep up the ruse.

She got the message, though she didn't have to feign her intrigue as much as she had to tone down her skepticism. Henry seemed to really believe that this curse was real, and even though there was a strong part of her that knew curses and magic didn't exist, the story of it all excited her. "Okay, so…" she started, remembering to keep her voice down, "if Regina is the Evil Queen, who is everyone else?"

Henry beamed, happy that Nina was apparently believing him and not brushing off his ideas like Alison normally would every time he tried to talk with her about the curse. "Mary-Margaret is Snow White and David Nolan is Prince Charming," he said, taking pause when Nina winced, ever aware of the current scandal surrounding the two as they started seeing each other while David was still married to his wife, Kathryn. Now that Kathryn was missing, the scandal grew bigger and the town believed that she ran away due to the infidelity or was murdered to be taken out of the picture.

Henry broke Nina out of her worry for her friend by continuing to name off the people he knew. "Archie Hopper is Jiminy Cricket, Mother Superior is the Blue Fairy, Ashley Boyd is Cinderella…"

"Henry, how do you know all this?" Nina asked. If he had been making all of it up, it was quite the elaborate scheme. The boy responded by tapping the book he had placed on the table and turning it around so Nina could read the title.

_Once Upon a Time._

"It's all in there," he said, reaching for the book and opening it to a random page. He flipped through it and Nina watched, glancing at words and illustrations, catching little bits of story from what she saw.

"If what you say is true…" she started, a little cautious to ask but her curiosity getting the better of her, "and everyone in Storybrooke is a character in this book, then which character am I?"

Henry's smile grew wider and he flipped through the pages faster, looking for a particular story. "Have you ever heard of the Snow Queen?" he asked, glancing up at Nina. She shook her head no when he finally found the place he was looking for. He shoved the book closer to her and she placed her hands on the pages, eyes wide in wonder.

On the left side of the margin was a beautiful illustration of a snowy mountain range, colored only by the glow of the dancing northern lights in the sky above. The page next to it displayed the title, "The Snow Queen," in a sophisticated, classic font.

"You're the sister of the Snow Queen," Henry explained as Nina flipped the pages, skipping over the first few because they didn't have any illustrations to go with the words. "On the day of her coronation, she accidentally freezes her kingdom and runs away. You go after her," he said, pointing a finger at her, "and after saving her life, you help her learn that love thaws and she frees the kingdom from the curse."

Nina blinked, connecting dots and drawing conclusions as she gazed upon another illustration, this one of a redheaded girl riding a white horse through a snowy tundra. She laughed quietly, suddenly unable to keep her poker face with what Henry was trying to tell her. "Wait, you think _I'm_ a princess?" she asked. Henry's enthusiastic nod only added to her disbelief. Energetic, clumsy and completely ungraceful little Nina was a princess? Yeah right. For Henry's sake she tried to go along with it.

"Well, okay, if I'm this crazy princess running around the mountains in a ball gown," she started, pointing to the picture with a lopsided grin, "then who's my equally crazy sister who turned the kingdom into a popsicle?"

"I'm pretty sure that it's Alison."

The name made Nina sit straight up and she looked into the young boy's eyes. "Alison?"

He nodded and the redhead immediately slumped over, leaning her head into her palm and taking a swig of her hot chocolate as she tried to sort out her feelings on that bit of information. "Henry, I don't know if that's right. I mean, I get along with her and everything, but… sisters? We're like, total opposites." She looked up to the ceiling, searching for her mental list of things she had in common with her roommate, and it didn't surprise her that the list was short. "I think the only thing we both like are chocolate and sunsets."

"You just don't remember," Henry argued. "But it does fit, you gotta trust me. If she remembers who she is, maybe she can help us find a way to break the curse!"

"Okay, I think that's enough for one day," Emma interrupted, giving Nina a death glare for dragging out the game longer than it needed to be. She finished her hot chocolate and stood up to leave, but when Henry wasn't moving she grew irritated. "Come on, kid, we have to get you home before your mom gets off of work, and I have a lead to follow on the Kathryn case."

With a heavy sigh, Henry closed the book and put it back in his bag. "It's okay if you don't believe me," he said, remaining optimistic in spite of Nina's confused face during the whole conversation. "When we break the curse, everything will make sense. You just gotta believe in the story, Nina, that's all."

She waved at them when they said their goodbyes, but when they walked out the door she was left with a head of swirling thoughts. Operation: Cobra was, of course, an extremely elaborate game that Henry had made up, probably sometime in the last few months out of a need for comfort. She remembered how she'd walk him home after school sometimes and he'd tell her how lonely he felt despite being surrounded by friends and loved by his adoptive mother, and they both related to each other feeling out of place in Storybrooke. Despite the string of good luck she was experiencing lately, Nina still wasn't sure if she felt right about living here.

What bothered her the most was that Henry was convinced that she and Alison were sisters. It was true that they were close enough to be seen as such, but she had blurred memories of them going to school together and parting ways to go home to their separate families. They never saw each other outside of school until Alison graduated because she'd be stuck doing homework from her advanced classes until she went to bed each night.

And then there was the physical differences between them. Their faces were a little similar and yet completely different, and true, their eye color was nearly the same save for the odd amount of green that made Nina's look like pools of sea, but the similarities stopped there. Nina had a head of copper while Alison's locks were nearly platinum. Nina could get a fair tan in any amount of sunlight while Alison's skin was so pale that when they first started living together, Nina had been afraid to actually take her outside in fear of burning her to a crisp after five minutes.

_There's no way that's true,_ she thought to herself, staring at her reflection in the remnants of her hot chocolate. _If we were sisters she'd be a lot more like me._

* * *

"So how was your date?"

Nina blinked, hand on the doorknob and she froze completely in the threshold to the apartment. "You couldn't wait to ask until I walked in the door, first?"

Alison shrugged, dabbed a brush in a glob of bright blue paint and cocked her head to the side, squinting at the canvas she was working on. "Color me curious," she said, putting the paint to the picture with a steady hand. "You seemed a lot happier after you gave up on Anderson, so I just wondered how things were going with John. He seems nice enough."

"He is," Nina said with a smile, finally able to close the door behind her. She spotted a wrapped canvas leaning up against the side of the couch and her eyes went wide, genuinely surprised. "You finished Regina's painting already?" she asked, hoping to keep the subject off of her budding relationship with the fisherman.

"Yup! I only had a little bit more to do on it when I came home, so while that was drying I started working on this one," Alison said, stopping a line and leaning back to look at what she was creating. "Would you mind helping me deliver it to her office?"

"Sure! No problem." She walked into the apartment a little more, leaning against the wall that opened to the living room as she usually did to keep Alison company but also stay her distance so she wouldn't disturb her while she painted. Her mind was still stuck on the conversation she had with Henry at the diner, and though he revealed his thoughts on the true identities of just a few of Storybrooke's residents, she amused herself by trying to figure out the rest.

"Neeners? You okay?"

"Y-Yeah, I'm fine, I'm just thinking," she said, ignoring Alison's deliberate use of her hated nickname. "This is going to sound really weird," she started, unsure of how to continue, "and I don't want to worry you because I know you care about him too, but Henry… well, Henry's convinced that everybody in town is a story book character."

Alison shrugged and smiled, still working on her painting. "He's probably just playing a game with you, Nina. I wouldn't worry about it," she said, unable to remember that the young boy had confessed the same realization to her before.

"He… he said that Regina's the Evil Queen." Nina tapped the knuckles of her fingers together and bit her lip, anticipating Alison's reaction.

The blonde stopped painting and looked at her from the canvas, her mouth parted slightly in a frown. "He said something like that when I met him on the way to the sheriff's office to meet Mr. Gold," she admitted, brows tightening at the correlation. "I thought he was just making some kind of joke… I didn't think he was actually _serious_ about it. Do you think we should tell his therapist?"

"I wouldn't. Archie probably already knows; Emma does." Nina crossed her arms, thinking back to all the silent clues Emma was giving her at the diner to go along with Henry's game and she laughed to herself, drawing the attention of her roommate. "He thinks that we're sisters and you're the Snow Queen," she said with a smile that drew out the blonde's playful smirk.

"_I'm_ the Snow Queen?" she asked again, giggling when Nina gave her an enthusiastic nod. "And what, am I supposed to have magical ice powers or something?"

"He said that you froze your kingdom on your coronation day."

"Wow. That's…" she paused, looking at the painting she was working on and taking pause at it, momentarily stunned by what she had created. A bright blue snowflake grew out of the center of a black background, seemingly glowing against the darkness as it stretched in vain to reach the edges of the canvas. The irony of it didn't escape her.

"That sounds pretty terrible of me to freeze my kingdom right after I became queen." She stood up and after a parting, haunted glance at the snowflake, she took the wrapped canvas from the couch and wandered over to the closet to get her shoes. "So if you're supposed to be my sister, you probably got me to unfreeze it, huh?"

"Did you already read the story?!" Nina asked, surprised that Alison knew the ending before she told her. The blonde shook her head dismissively. "How did you know that, then?"

"Because I know you, and if the person you are now is the same as the Snow Queen's sister, then the queen's just as lucky as I am to have that little redheaded ray of optimism in her life, too."

"Oh, you're just saying that," Nina blushed.

"Maybe." Alison motioned over to the door with a nod of her head. "Now be my good little ray of optimism and escort the Snow Queen to the Evil Queen's castle," she joked, getting giggles out of the friend who curtsied when she opened the door for her.

* * *

"I am _not_ going in there!"

"Oh come on!" Alison drawled as she hopped off the back of the bike. "You're always ready to go on adventures; what's so different about this?"

"Ali, its _Regina_." She said the name like she was spitting out poison. "I barely managed to stand still in Mr. Gold's shop without him getting mad at me. If I try standing still in Regina's office she's gonna have me arrested!"

Alison rolled her eyes with a smile. "She's not going to arrest you for just standing there."

"Wanna bet? I'm brave; not stupid. You go have fun with the Evil Queen, Your Majesty. I'll keep your chariot waiting."

"Fine, fine… I'll be back in a few minutes."

She walked up to the center door of Town Hall and swung it open, maneuvering herself and the painting through before it could close on her. On occasion Nina would drag her in here to attend town meetings, but she was frankly uninterested in them because the matters they discussed had little to do with her, nor did they affect her living conditions. On those same occasions, Nina would get bored during the intermissions and insisted they go adventuring, which was just an exciting way to say "Let's tour the town hall and see where we can go without getting in trouble."

It was thanks to those excursions that Alison knew right where she needed to go. The mayor, as far as she knew, didn't have a personal secretary; she preferred to handle all of her business on her own. She was a little surprised when she called her office this afternoon and was answered on the first ring to accept the delivery.

She knocked on the fogged door with the word "Mayor" printed on it with gold lettering. While she waited patiently outside, she looked around and admired the historical architecture of the town hall until the door opened and she was met with Regina's false smile.

"It's nice to see you again, Ms. Vinter!" she forcefully exclaimed, stepping out of the doorway and motioning to her office. "Please, come in, make yourself comfortable!"

"Th-Thank you, Madame Mayor," Alison stuttered, cursing herself for doing so in face of the powerful woman. Any courage she had remaining from her talk with Mr. Gold earlier escaped out the door just before it was closed behind her, and suddenly she wished she had tried harder to convince Nina to come with her.

"I'm surprised you finished it so fast," Regina said, leading Alison to a seating area off to the side of the room that was centered around a glass coffee table and cozied by the fireplace. "How long has it been since the festival? A month perhaps? You seemed to have quite the crowd at your table."

"Well I thought I'd prioritize your painting over my other commissions," Alison admitted as she set the piece on the table and began the process of unwrapping it. "Seeing as you're the mayor and everything."

"You didn't have to go through the trouble!" Regina said with a light chuckle that sent chills down Alison's spine. "I will admit that you couldn't have had better timing, though. I needed something to look forward to after all this mess with Mr. Gold, and now with Kathryn missing…" She closed her eyes briefly and shook her head to the side, casting away her troubles for now as Alison removed the last bit of wrapping and held the painting by the edges of the frame for her to see.

Her brown eyes went wide as she took in the details of the painting. A strict stone bridge served as a prelude to protective walls and a strong, sturdy gate with a pointed design running up its doors. Beyond the wall was the castle proper, not entirely visible behind the protective barrier, but still strong and hardy with pointed roofs, tall spires and triangular windows. The castle seemed to be sitting on an island of its own, backed by a sheer rock wall of crags.

Alison wouldn't say it, but her favorite part of the painting was the last minute details she added to it that afternoon. Inspired by the events that took place within Mr. Gold's shop that day, she had used the symbol from Nina's necklace as the crest of this fictional kingdom. It blazed proudly in gold against the purple and green shields that adorned the turrets and she smirked in satisfaction, happy that she was able to include her best friend in her work.

"My, you have truly outdone yourself," Regina gasped, stopping herself from running her fingers over the canvas out of a desire to simply jump into the scene that was painted for her. "Where did you come up with such an idea?"

"I really don't know," Alison answered truthfully, shrugging her shoulders. "I was just visiting some friends and suddenly a vision of it came to me." She watched as Regina set it gently against the slate couch to admire it from afar. "I hope it's okay, I mean… you just said that you wanted "a castle" and I wasn't sure what colors to use, but-"

"Oh nonsense, it's perfect!" With an open palm, she directed Alison towards her desk. "Of course there's the matter of your payment… oh, and would you like a glass of fresh apple cider before you go?" she asked, too sweetly for Alison's taste. She shook her head and held up her hands, wanting to keep her visit with the intimidating authority figure short.

"No thank you, I'm more of a tea drinker actually," she admitted as an excuse.

"Oh, well perhaps another time then. Your work is quite extraordinary; I may have to request another painting in the future," she smiled, taking her checkbook out from her bag. Alison secretly hoped that the mayor was just saying that to be nice, because the amount of stress this one painting caused her was _so_ not worth it… until Regina began to fill out the amount of money she was paying her with the check. The sum started with a three, and the two additional zeroes already took her higher than her average pay from Mr. Gold. When Regina added an extra zero to the end and handed the check to Alison, the pale girl nearly fainted from her excitement.

"A-Are you sure?" she asked, looking between the check and the mayor with cautious blue eyes. Nina's voice popped into her head for a moment telling her to "take the money and run!" but there was some kind of fear that was holding her back.

Regina all but shoved the slip of paper into her hands. "I'm positive. Artwork such as this deserves a fair price."

"Oh wow, thank you so much! I…" It was time to go. She couldn't stay here any longer; her hands were starting to shake from nerves and there was just a simple _bad_ feeling washing over her. "I don't mean to sound rude, but I have to get going. I kind of left Nina waiting outside and-"

"I understand," Regina said kindly with a curt nod. "I appreciate your business, Ms. Vinter. Perhaps in the future we could collaborate on a project together."

"That'd be great!" Oh, who was she kidding? That would be torture, having to work with the strict and fearsome mayor on a project that Alison would likely have little interest in. But if it paid just as well as one of her paintings did… well, she might just have to consider it. "Thank you again!" she waved, exiting the room and barely closing the door behind her before she made a mad dash to Nina out of both excitement and relief from the meeting being over.

As soon as the blonde removed herself from her office, Regina's practiced smile quickly faded to a tight frown and her eyebrows raised with renewed interest. She walked back to the couch, heels clicking stoically against the marble floor and she crossed her arms as she stared down the painting.

"The Kingdom of the North," she seethed, focusing on the golden crest of the fair castle. Looking up, she watched from her window as Alison climbed on the back of Nina's bike, and a wicked smile, a true smile, crept upon her ruby lips.

"So _that's_ who you are…"


End file.
